Alan Han, SEAS ’25, Flushing, NY
The career services grant funded my cost of living expenses this summer as I worked as a lab assistant in Dr. Madl’s lab. I was able to clarify and expand on my preliminary test results and rheology runs; working in the lab close to full-time hours has given me more time to conduct organic synthesis experiments and run gels on the rheometer, the instrument we use to measure the material properties of soft materials. My main progress has been fine-tuning the synthesis of the precursor materials and more importantly, the formation of the gels and measuring their material properties, such as their viscoelastic nature (balance between a liquid, viscous component versus a solid, elastic component) or their stress-relaxation times. Being able to work in the lab full-time also gave me the opportunity to attend lab meetings and learn from the other lab members, a massive component of research but especially the work that our lab focuses on; while the eventual goal of the research is clinical, the lab requires collaboration between many disciplines of engineering and the natural sciences. We have bioengineers working on the cell cultures, materials scientists working on the specific properties of the hydrogel environments, and chemical engineers like myself focusing on the synthesis of said hydrogels.
I was also able to continue volunteering at the VA medical center, and extend my weekly shift to get more time assisting the nurses in the inpatient unit. Not only did I continue my usual tasks of restocking medical supplies for physicians and nurses and transporting patients between tests and for discharge, I also assisted the nurses with keeping some patients extra company. On a particularly busy evening, I kept watch over a somewhat aggressive patient who sought to leave the unit without the proper medical care that he had come in for; given that the nurses had many other patients to attend to, I kept up a conversation with him to take his mind off the environment that he was in, and also informed the nurses if he attempted to stand up and exit the unit. This instance, and many others, gave me valuable insight into how patient care sometimes means very basic quality of life improvements and conversing with the patients in a friendly manner, as I witnessed the attending physician and the nurses do.
Being able to see the two distinct sides of medicine – the basic science research that develops into therapeutics as well as the fundamental patient care aspect from volunteering, such as doing basic tasks that can improve a patient’s comfort level in an unfamiliar environment that they might not want to be in, was really eye-opening. I hope to really develop my patient care skills further in medical school, while at the same time participating in research further downstream of what I currently work on, in the form of clinical trials utilizing therapeutic interventions. I would like to express my gratitude to Career Services for the support that has allowed me to have this wonderful summer experience that I hope to build on in the coming academic year and my future career.
This is part of a series of posts by recipients of the 2024 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
