Forming Scientific Connections and Building Community

The 11th cohort of JGI-UC Merced interns pick highlights from their summer experiences.

This year the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI), a DOE Office of Science User Facility, hosted three undergraduates and seven graduate students from UC Merced through their long standing internship program. In just two months, the students participated in networking workshops, data carpentry hackathons, and also made new friends while working on their summer projects. Watch the short video here to see what they had to say about their experiences and what they’ll take with them as they go forward in their careers.

Listed below are the interns, their mentors, and their summer projects. Each intern also mentioned what they loved about their internship.

• Efosa Omorogieva: “The entire experience of living in another city, taking the shuttle from stop to stop and having responsibilities. I like the environment that JGI brings and being able to be a part of groundbreaking research is very sentimental to me.”
  • Mentors: Crysten Blaby-Haas & Bikash Shrestha
  • Project: “Detecting Isotope Bonds in Proteins.”

• Yu Lu: ”I really enjoyed meeting and getting to know many of the scientists that work here.”
  • Mentor: Lorenzo Aureli
  • Project: “Exploring the epigenetic basis of pathogenicity in bacteria”

• Erika Maquiling: “Being a JGI intern means going to the workshops and listening to the speakers talk about their own experiences and what their research means to them, applying those same principles to my own research and everyday routines.”
  • Mentors: Jessen Bredeson & Albert Wu
  • Project: “Pangenome de Bruijn Graph Simplification”

• Peter Nguyen: “Being an JGI intern has been an honor and a life changing experience to me. Starting my PhD straight out of undergraduate, I have not had the experience to work in other settings. Being an intern here has allowed me to make connections with the top of the top scientists in their fields. I have learned so much in terms of scientific approach and as a plant biologist, I have learned so many techniques and theory. Being able to work with state of the art technology and greenhouses/grow chambers has been an incredible experience. I feel like a more rounded scientist and I hope to keep in touch with the JGI.”
  • Mentors: Yi Zhai & John Vogel
  • Project: Characterization of Brachypodium distachyon root transporters in plant-microbiome interactions”

• Cory-James Pugne-Andenoro: “The best part of the internship is the welcome and open community of the JGI. Everyone is excited to learn and share what they are doing. I am very proud of the opportunity to work at the JGI and represent UC Merced. The research I am working on is very cutting edge and I am happy to be a part of a positive change in science.”
  • Mentor: Zhong Wang
  • Project: “Improving biosynthetic gene cluster annotation by leveraging a large genomic model”

• Leonel Gonzalez: “It’s been great having been able to connect with people who were able to give me some guidance in my academic journey.”
  • Mentors: Deze Kong & Yasuo Yoshikuni
  • Project: “Development of a multiplex genomic integration system for the selection of genes essential for specialized carbon utilization”

• Jesica Calderon: “Being a JGI intern means being a part of a dynamic and innovative environment where collaboration and research discovery are at the forefront.”
  • Mentors: Rex Malmstrom, Nandita Nath & W. Berkeley Kauffman
  • Project: “16s Sequencing of Barcoded Microbial Genomes”

• Morgan Lavenstein Bendall: “It’s great meeting the wonderful people who work at JGI and learning about their research.”
  • Mentor: Juan C. Villada
  • Project: “Investigating metabolic network of symbiosis using genome-scale metabolic models”

• Pedro Antonio Perez Ferrer: “I enjoyed meeting fellow interns and JGI staff.”
  • Mentors Sajeet Haridas & Asaf Salamov
  • Project: “Improving the JGI fungal mitochondrial annotation pipeline”

• Anna Kucherova: “I got to learn about skills and tools that I’d never done before from my mentors. Also, there’s always a better way to do something.”
  • Mentors Daniela Cassol, Jeff Froula & Ed Kirton
  • Project: “Streamlining computational studies of misfolding proteins via high performance computing”

Erika Maquiling, Leonel Gonzalez and Peter Nguyen were selected to give presentations of their work at the recent JGI Annual Meeting. Through the DOE RENEW initiative, three of the interns – graduate students Peter Nguyen and Jesica Calderon, as well as undergraduate Erika Maquiling – were selected to continue their research over the school year.