the SURF program at UTHSC is one of the greatest highlights of my undergraduate career, as I spent a summer learning and growing in the research field. I worked in a neuroscience lab under Dr. Fu-Ming Zhou and was given the project of comparing the brains of two different types of mice that vary in their levels of functioning dopamine. The fact that this lab centered on Parkinson’s disease connected the idea of science to people, and I enjoy having a sense of the bigger picture. After this, I applied for the Summer Research Scholars program and got to spend my second summer of college back at UTHSC. I was placed in a Vision Sciences lab under Dr. Jablonski and investigated a potential mouse model for age-related macular degeneration. After my experience with SURF, I have visited the lab I worked in multiple times because of the friends I made there and the influence they had on me. I went into SURF unsure about research, but since I was able to be a scientist, and because my PI was so encouraging, I left the program thinking like an investigator and eager to do more. I presented my findings from that summer at the SouthEastern Medical Scientist Symposium. My abstract was accepted and a travel grant was provided for this conference, and I have to attribute that success to the people in my lab, as they helped me throughout the process of applying. Overall, my SURF experience was amazing because of the people that I engaged with and the open-minded atmosphere that I was in. Thank you to everyone that made this possible; I am a changed student because of my experience with SURF.
T Surabhi Rao Participation year: 2013 Fellowship type and location: Institutional, University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) Current title: undergraduate student, University of Alabama Birmingham
12 • SURF I Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program