PhD student Sarah Brickman and postdoctoral researcher Nall Moonillal have been honored with the highest recognition on campus for their outstanding role in mentoring undergraduate research. This award celebrates their exceptional contributions to guiding undergraduate students in research and/or creative activities.
During the Winter of 2024, Sarah and Nall spearheaded a comprehensive professional development series for their undergraduate mentees. This program involved weekly meetings featuring tailored activities aimed at providing students with a solid theoretical foundation in their research area, alongside the essential skills necessary for effective research presentations. The series covered diverse topics such as navigating scientific literature, analyzing and discussing findings from scholarly articles, processing and evaluating laboratory data, creating visual representations, refining presentation techniques, and crafting research posters.
The culmination of this professional development initiative was a research symposium where the undergraduate researchers showcased their findings. Remarkably, two of the students went on to present their work at the prestigious UC Davis Undergraduate Research Conference.