This summer marked the first fully in-person internship experience in several years for students and researchers alike at the JGI. With the past few years upended by the pandemic, 2023 gave interns the opportunity to be fully immersed in not only their work, but the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from fellow researchers onsite as well.
There were 25 interns in the summer cohort. Many of them came through programs and long-term educational partners such as Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI), CalTeach, the Engineering Biology Research Consortium (EBRC), and Biotech Partners. Additionally, for the first time, JGI researchers mentored faculty through the DOE Visiting Faculty Program (VFP). The rest of the interns came from our flagship internship program with the University of California, Merced and their experiences can be seen and read here.
SULI
Erica Duffy, Biomedical Engineering undergraduate at California Polytechnic State University, also pictured with mentor Hiroshi Otani.
Question: What do you hope to gain out of this program?
Answer: Gaining experience in genome-scale engineering, synthetic biology, and natural products production; experience research at a national laboratory, and learn about career paths that brought people to the JGI.
Q: What’s been the best part of working at the JGI?
A: The best part of working here has been meeting and interacting with all of the people. I’ve had the opportunity to talk with scientists/engineers on multiple levels at JGI, ranging from postdocs and research scientists all the way to department heads. Learning their career path and receiving professional advice about being an early-career scientist/engineer has been one of the most rewarding parts of working at the JGI for the summer.
Yuguo “Kelly” Tang, Applied Math & Computer Science undergraduate at University of California, Berkeley, also pictured with mentor Zhong Wang
Q: What do you hope to gain out of this program?
A: I hope to gain hands-on independent research experience and apply my knowledge learned in classrooms to real-world problems. Collaborating with professional scientists, I wish to hear their insights and learn how they study and communicate science.
Q: What’s been the best part of working at the JGI?
A: The best part of interning at the JGI is being able to use robust computing power to analyze large amounts of data. This makes the research possible, given the limited time in summer. Being a JGI intern exposes me to genomics’ forefront and advanced analysis tools. With great mentorship and top-notch resources, I fostered essential critical thinking skills, learned programming skills exponentially faster than in a classroom, and was able to apply my knowledge directly. This experience is extremely valuable for my future career.
Alex Pennacchio, Computational Biology undergraduate at Occidental College, also pictured with mentor Benjamin Cole
Q: What do you hope to gain out of this program?
A: I am passionate about using computational approaches to solve key problems in the field. This program will give me the toolkit that I need to pursue my goals as a budding computational researcher.
Q: What’s been the best part of working at the JGI?
A: Being able to interact with the research staff here at JGI has been the most impactful part of this internship. Hearing about the diversity of work going on at JGI has informed me about the opportunities that are out there in computational biology and working with the staff here has really inspired my interest and aided in my development as a young scientist.
CalTeach
Hyunjun Lee, Molecular Cell Biology undergraduate at University of California, Berkeley, pictured with mentor Andrei Steindorff.
Q: What do you hope to gain out of this program?
A: For this research, I hope to expand my skill set in programming and apply it to answering real-world biological questions. As I explored the diversity of mycovirus on JGI MycoCosm’s fungal genomes for my research project, I am now interested in investigating the fundamental but complex aspects of fungi.
Q: What’s been the best part of working at the JGI?
A: The best part of working as a JGI intern is being surrounded by many researchers with diverse expertise. The environment encourages me to ask questions, involve myself in discussion, and seek motivative feedback. Also, even outside of my research project, I get to learn about other people’s exciting projects and discuss them!
The rest of the interns from this cohort and their JGI mentors are listed below, along with their academic institution:
- VFP
- Chhandak Basu (California State University, Northridge) and his graduate student Avetis Mishegyan, mentor: Zhong Wang
- Tiffany Oliver (Spelman College), mentors: Emily Eloe-Fadrosh and Tanja Woyke
- EBRC
- Eva Ottum (University of California, Riverside), mentor: Yasuo Yoshikuni
- CalTeach
- Doreen Wang (University of California, Berkeley), mentor: Zhong Wang
- Bharat Meta (Hayward Unified School District), mentor: Igor Grigoriev
- Victor Cruz Ramos (University of California, Berkeley), mentor: Zhong Wang
- BioTech Partners
- Jasmin Diaz Munoz (Antioch High School), mentor: TBK Reddy
Mentor/intern photography provided by Thor Swift/Berkeley Lab.
Byline: Graham Rutherford