A Foot Forward in the Realm of Science

Diego Barragan, COL ’25, Bridgeport, CT

This summer, I had the honor in working in the Cormode Lab in the Department of Radiology at Penn Medicine. I have been working in the Cormode Lab since October 2022 and this summer was my first summer at Penn and being able to work full-time in the lab. It was a more engaging experience than working part-time throughout the semester.

After finishing my first year at Penn, I had very limited knowledge beyond the lab work I was doing throughout the semester. However, being in the lab for longer periods of time this summer, I was able to fully immerse myself in the research that we were conducting. I was trained on how to operate various machines to perform analyses of synthesized particles and samples that I prepared.

The project that I was working on with my mentor involved making better contrast agents for breast cancer imaging. I learned how to properly present my new findings at our lab’s monthly meetings and received meaningful feedback on how I should continue with the research project.

These past few months in the lab really made me feel involved in the work of being a scientist. Conducting experiments, failing to get desired results, presenting my results, and getting feedback on how I can move on based on the failed results I get.

Thanks to this opportunity from Career Services, I was able to explore a potential career path in the sciences that I could see myself in the future pursuing.

This is part of a series of posts by recipients of the 2022 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they spent their summer. You can read the entire series here.

By Career Services
Career Services