The summer student will be leaving by the end of July, and we had her wrap-up presentation on Friday.
Her presentation was excellent. Since she showed up right around the time we were collecting samples from a one-year, transgenic mice-based colon cancer study, we assigned her to analyze the samples for histology and for molecular markers. Overall, she worked hard, generated a body of data that would be the backbone for upcoming publication. It seemed she enjoyed the process of the research as well.
There was an unexpected finding, and a part of her results even suggests the reason of the unexpected finding. We will follow it up.
A majority of time for science, at least for our kind of medical research, is spent for preparation. After a long time of preparation, we reach results. In a sense she was lucky for being assigned for tasks that can directly generate results. But the way she worked diligently and generated results is not luck. I appreciate her for doing that amount of analysis work in such a short time.
This type of outcome, a win-win, is ideal. Scientific training still retains an air of medieval guild-type training, and career building for science is a referral business to some extent. It is much easier for me (or for anyone in a supervising/mentoring position) to recommend someone who has tangible results, something to show.
"Show and tell" is a basic format for science. It is mandatory to get the job done and show the results.
Also on Friday, Cora and Jose were performing a Show Tango in a party. It was decent presentation, and I was happy about it as well.
