A Case Study: Exploring the Influence of Home Environments on Tissue-Engineering Summer Research Experiences for High School Students

Marla Hilderbrand-Chae; Shalain Iqbal Siddiqui; Chiara E. Ghezzi; Bryan Black; Janna Jobel; Yanfen Li

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Conference: 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Baltimore , Maryland
Publication Date: June 25, 2023
Start Date: June 25, 2023
End Date: June 28, 2023
Conference Session: Biomedical Engineering Division (BED) Technical Session 2: Experiential Learning in Biomedical Engineering
Tagged Division: Biomedical Engineering Division (BED)
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 14
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--42359
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/42359
Download Count: 232

Paper Authors

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Marla Hilderbrand-Chae University of Massachusetts, Lowell

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Marla Hilderbrand-Chae is a Ph.D. student in the UML Biomedical Engineering Program where she researches engagement and mentorship in engineering education at the high school level. Hilderbrand-Chae has consulted for and presented at conferences sponsored by J-WEL, the World Education Lab at MIT, and worked in partnership with Boston Scientifics’ Division of Equity and Inclusion group in developing a high school science mentorship program for underrepresented minorities (URM). She was a founding member of a STEAM Innovation Program at an urban vocational technical school servicing URM in STEM, where she taught Biology, Chemistry, and Biotechnology. Hilderbrand-Chae has a Masters’ Degree in Genetics from Tufts University Medical School and now focuses research on epigenetic regulation influenced by substrate stiffness.

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Shalain Iqbal Siddiqui

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Chiara E. Ghezzi

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Chiara Ghezzi, PhD is assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at University of Massachusetts Lowell. She received her undergraduate and masterâ€™s degrees in biomedical engineering from Politecnico di Milano, in Italy. During her d

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Bryan Black University of Massachusetts, Lowell

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Janna Jobel University of Massachusetts, Lowell

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Dr. Janna Jobel received her PhD in Educational Leadership researching the ways in which social emotional competencies are taught in STEM high schools. She is now a postdoctoral research associate in the Biomedical Engineering department of UMass Lowell conducting interdisciplinary research to better understand what factors most influence the K-20 STEM pipeline.

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Yanfen Li University of Massachusetts, Lowell orcid.org/0000-0002-9465-7147

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Dr. Yanfen Li is an Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She received her Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in 2018. Dr. Li has extensive experience in engineering education focusing on recruitment and retention of underrepresented and under resourced students and engineering pedagogy. Her work spans the areas of curriculum instruction and design, program design and evaluation, and the first-year college experience.

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Abstract

Currently, there are over one million STEM job openings without qualified applicants in the United States and the field of Biomedical Engineering (BME) is projected to grow 10% from 2021 to 2031 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). To meet growing BME workforce needs, it is essential to support initial student interests in STEM to aid students’ decision making. One strategy that has seen significant success in encouraging students to pursue STEM and engineering fields has been high school internships that engage students in authentic STEM environments (Adjapong et al., 2016; Patel et al, 2021). High school internships are especially impactful for underrepresented minority (URM) female students in STEM (Kusimo et al 2018). Prior research has shown that these internship opportunities can increase students’ sense of self-efficacy in STEM fields, give students insight into career paths they might not otherwise be exposed to, and increase students’ interest in and pursuit of STEM-related majors and careers (Adjiapong, et al 2016; Kusimo et al, 2018).

During the summer 2022, two BME faculty specializing in tissue engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, hosted three students from Lowell High School to engage in a summer research opportunity. The goal of this research experience was to provide students with equitable access to high-quality educational experiences to prepare them for postsecondary education and potential careers in STEM disciplines. In addition, students had the opportunity to make meaningful experiential connections with some of their chemistry, physics, and biology curricula, thus, bolstering their future engagement in these subjects. This 8-week summer research experience was organized in two unique phases. In the first four weeks, students shadowed undergraduate and/or students during research activities and were trained on basic laboratory skills, cell culture techniques, biomaterial processing, as well as multi-well microelectrode array recordings for electrophysiological data analysis. In the last four weeks of the program, the high school students were asked to independently develop an experimental procedure for an alginate-based cell bioink, with the inclusion of PMMA fluorescently labeled particles as surrogate for cell in suspension. At the conclusion of the program, cognitive interviews were conducted with the high school interns, their parents, and their undergraduate student mentors to evaluate the efficacy of the summer program in promoting students’ interests in STEM and to identify the factors that may affect students’ success in high school summer research programs. Interview results will highlight the unique relationship between high school students, their parents, their undergraduate student mentors, and the faculty involved with research. Results from this paper may indicate special considerations to educate future design of high school research experiences in STEM fields.

Works Cited Adjapong, Edmund S., et al. (2016). Empowering girls of color through authentic science internships. Journal of Urban Learning Teaching and Research, 12, 24–34. Kusimo, Abisola, et al. (2018). Effects of research and internship experiences on engineering task self-efficacy on engineering students through an intersectional lens. 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings, 23814 https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--30363. Patel, Anushka, et al. (2021). Summer research internships prepare high school students for 21st century biomedical careers. The Journal of STEM Outreach, 4, (1),https://doi.org/10.15695/jstem/v4i1.13. US Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2021). Bioengineers and Biomedical Engineers, In: Occupational Outlook Handbook . U.S. Department of Labor. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/biomedical-engineers.htm (visited November 21, 2022).

Citation
Format

Hilderbrand-Chae, M., & Siddiqui, S. I., & Ghezzi, C. E., & Black, B., & Jobel, J., & Li, Y. (2023, June), A Case Study: Exploring the Influence of Home Environments on Tissue-Engineering Summer Research Experiences for High School Students Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--42359

TY - CPAPER
AB - Currently, there are over one million STEM job openings without qualified applicants in the United States and the field of Biomedical Engineering (BME) is projected to grow 10% from 2021 to 2031 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). To meet growing BME workforce needs, it is essential to support initial student interests in STEM to aid students’ decision making. One strategy that has seen significant success in encouraging students to pursue STEM and engineering fields has been high school internships that engage students in authentic STEM environments (Adjapong et al., 2016; Patel et al, 2021). High school internships are especially impactful for underrepresented minority (URM) female students in STEM (Kusimo et al 2018). Prior research has shown that these internship opportunities can increase students’ sense of self-efficacy in STEM fields, give students insight into career paths they might not otherwise be exposed to, and increase students’ interest in and pursuit of STEM-related majors and careers (Adjiapong, et al 2016; Kusimo et al, 2018).

During the summer 2022, two BME faculty specializing in tissue engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, hosted three students from Lowell High School to engage in a summer research opportunity. The goal of this research experience was to provide students with equitable access to high-quality educational experiences to prepare them for postsecondary education and potential careers in STEM disciplines. In addition, students had the opportunity to make meaningful experiential connections with some of their chemistry, physics, and biology curricula, thus, bolstering their future engagement in these subjects. This 8-week summer research experience was organized in two unique phases. In the first four weeks, students shadowed undergraduate and/or students during research activities and were trained on basic laboratory skills, cell culture techniques, biomaterial processing, as well as multi-well microelectrode array recordings for electrophysiological data analysis. In the last four weeks of the program, the high school students were asked to independently develop an experimental procedure for an alginate-based cell bioink, with the inclusion of PMMA fluorescently labeled particles as surrogate for cell in suspension. At the conclusion of the program, cognitive interviews were conducted with the high school interns, their parents, and their undergraduate student mentors to evaluate the efficacy of the summer program in promoting students’ interests in STEM and to identify the factors that may affect students’ success in high school summer research programs. Interview results will highlight the unique relationship between high school students, their parents, their undergraduate student mentors, and the faculty involved with research. Results from this paper may indicate special considerations to educate future design of high school research experiences in STEM fields.

Works Cited
Adjapong, Edmund S., et al. (2016). Empowering girls of color through authentic science internships. Journal of Urban Learning Teaching and Research, 12, 24–34.
Kusimo, Abisola, et al. (2018). Effects of research and internship experiences on engineering task self-efficacy on engineering students through an intersectional lens. 2018 ASEE Annual Conference &amp;amp; Exposition Proceedings, 23814 https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--30363.
Patel, Anushka, et al. (2021). Summer research internships prepare high school students for 21st century biomedical careers. The Journal of STEM Outreach, 4, (1),https://doi.org/10.15695/jstem/v4i1.13.
US Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2021). Bioengineers and Biomedical Engineers, In: Occupational Outlook Handbook . U.S. Department of Labor. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/biomedical-engineers.htm (visited November 21, 2022).

AU - Marla Hilderbrand-Chae
AU - Shalain Iqbal Siddiqui
AU - Chiara E. Ghezzi
AU - Bryan Black
AU - Janna Jobel
AU - Yanfen Li
CY - Baltimore , Maryland
DA - 2023/06/25
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - A Case Study: Exploring the Influence of Home Environments on Tissue-Engineering Summer Research Experiences for High School Students
UR - https://peer.asee.org/42359
DO - 10.18260/1-2--42359
ER -