Working Across Boundaries to Engage Students in Research
Lab Science Investigations (LSI) is a two-week hands-on summer research experience at Tufts for high school students. It’s also an interdisciplinary program that raises awareness of the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a partnership between centers and schools across Tufts, and a collaborative learning group of people of different ages, academic levels, experiences, cultures, and perspectives.
Best of all, it’s a lot of fun.
Nicole Ma, a junior at North Quincy High School, attended LSI this summer. She said she would highly recommend the program to other science-interested high schoolers. “I would tell them, definitely go,” she said. “It’s a great experience. You’ll learn a lot and you’ll probably miss it when it’s over.”
Ma said the program was more fun and engaging than labs she had done at school with materials like food coloring and water. “At LSI, the equipment we used was much more advanced,” she said, “and we were using actual bacteria and chemicals.”
At the beginning of the program, Ma was “a little afraid to talk to people.” But during the two weeks of lectures, labs, science communication seminars, and a capstone project, she came into her own.
“Everybody bonded pretty well, and we helped each other if we didn’t understand a concept,” she said. “By the end, if I had a question, I wasn’t afraid to ask the professor or teaching assistant (TA).”
Breaking Barriers
That’s music to the ears of Revati Masilamani, an assistant professor in the Department of Medical Education at Tufts University School of Medicine and Tisch College of Civic Life. She is also co-director of the Tufts Center for Science Education. She created and directs LSI and sees the two weeks as “an arc of growth and learning.”
“LSI breaks the barrier of entrance for high school students who have never had research experience,” she said. “It gives them the skills they need to contribute to a lab, if that is what they want, or to be effective science communicators and ambassadors.”
LSI, which launched in 2023, is a collaborative venture between the Center for Science Education and the Stuart B. Levy Center for Integrated Management of Antimicrobial Resistance (CIMAR), with help from University College.
The focus on antimicrobial resistance, which relates to bacterial pathogens that have evolved to evade current antibiotics, is a natural fit for Masilamani. She’s an immunologist and infectious disease biologist, and she wanted the course to be interdisciplinary, which AMR definitely is. “You need collaborations between veterinarians, epidemiologists, physicians, scientists, and engineers to solve the problem of AMR,” she said.
The LSI curriculum looks at AMR through the lens of One Health, the idea that the health of humans, animals, and the environment are all intertwined.
Cheleste Thorpe, M93, director of CIMAR and an associate professor at the School of Medicine and Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, said one of the missions of the center is to raise awareness about AMR through education. “When Revati wanted to interact with CIMAR and put on a lab course using a One Health perspective, we were delighted,” she said. “She’s a master educator. I can’t say enough about how gifted she is in that realm.”
Fostering Collaboration and Collegiality
LSI has four strands: lectures, labs, science communication, and a team-based capstone project. Lectures and labs draw heavily on Tufts resources. Lectures are presented by faculty from across all schools, including the School of Medicine and Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. The labs are part of a citizen science project called PARE that documents AMR bacteria in soil and water samples worldwide. PARE is a project of the Center for Science Education, co-directed by Masilamani and Carol Bascom-Slack, research assistant professor in the Department of Medical Education. In addition, students take field trips to both Cummings School in Grafton and the Boston Health Sciences Campus, including Tufts Medical Center, with hands-on activities and behind-the-scenes tours.
Throughout all the strands, Masilamani works hard to model and teach constructive communication and collegiality. She wants students to practice thinking critically and communicating effectively—and respectfully. LSI students come from different backgrounds and countries, including France, China, Brazil, and the United States, so cultural differences can add to communication challenges.
“It’s an opportunity for students to practice what scientists do in the real world, which is work across cultures, languages, and personalities, to come together and solve problems,” she said. “You can have disagreements, but it’s important to have them in a way that is polite and professional and considers the other person’s investment in the process.”
Clementine Thompson, a high school senior from France, said her ability to express herself improved while working on a team of four for the capstone project. “Collaboration can be complicated,” she said, “but LSI taught me how to take in other people’s opinions—even when I think they are wrong—and to work together.”
Tufts undergraduates play an integral role in LSI as TAs. Masilamani developed a rigorous training module to prepare TAs for their role, teaching them not only about AMR and One Health, but also pedagogy, communication, and conflict resolution. During LSI, each TA leads a group of 12 high schoolers, teaching them during labs and science communication seminars and providing guidance and feedback for capstone projects. They are also responsible for setting up the lab materials each day, under the direction of lab instructors.
“From my perspective, LSI has almost an equal focus on undergraduate growth and development as it has on high school students,” Masilamani said.
“I learned a lot from being a TA and from Dr. M.,” said Nery Matias Calmo, E25, who is from Everett, Massachusetts. “It was nice being able to manage a whole group of 12 students and see how they paid attention to what I had to say. It really boosted my confidence in being able to teach them.”
The TAs also acted as role models. “Our purpose is to make sure the students are learning the science and that they are able to explain it in a way that makes sense to others so they can bring it back to their communities,” said Sara Dolan, A25, a biochemistry and biotechnology major from Santa Rosa, California. “In a more general sense, the TAs are there to provide mentorship and talk to them about our experiences in STEM and how we got here.”
Empowering a New Generation of Researchers and Science Ambassadors
Beyond clear communication among scientists and peers, explaining science to non-scientists is a key part of LSI. Students have a chance to practice that in their capstone project—a public health campaign related to an AMR issue somewhere around the world. On the last day of LSI, students present their projects to an audience of parents and friends.
Brian Noonan, executive director of CIMAR, was in attendance. “It was absolutely fantastic,” he said. “The energy in the room was incredible.”
Noonan, who has a career’s worth of experience in the pharmaceutical industry behind him, hopes LSI will inspire a new generation to address AMR and the need for better antibiotics.
“Most of the researchers in the antibiotic development field are retired or about to,” Noonan said. “To me, there is a real risk that we’re not going to have appropriately trained researchers and clinicians to deal with antimicrobial resistance problems. This generation needs to be aware that this is something they could contribute to.”
LSI participants and TAs certainly are aware.
Matias Calmo, E25, who is majoring in biomedical engineering, said, “LSI changed my outlook on what I want to do in the world.” He is now considering a master’s in public health. As a member of the Maya Mam community, he is drawn to the idea of helping his people through public health.
Thompson said, “LSI helped me be sure of what I want to do later on—biochemistry graduate school and then go into research.”
Until then, she’s embracing the science ambassador role. During LSI, Thompson sent long voice messages to her friends in France about everything she was learning. And now she’s putting together a presentation that she plans to give to a local primary school about AMR.
“I’m really passionate about what I’ve learnt and I’m looking forward to sharing it,” she said.