The Health Sciences Research Fellowship brings together a community of ten unique researchers. Although all of us work on lab-based research centered around the health sciences, there is still so much diversity of personality, experiences, and research topics and methods. I hope to learn more about the other HSRF recipients and their research this summer. Learning about other researchers’ introduction to research, research environment, and overall research journey can broaden my view of different avenues of research and different pathways in research. I can also use their experiences to inform my own decisions about how to continue building research into my future and career. I am also excited to learn about the different research that my fellow HSRF recipients are undertaking in hopes of finding new research interests or even potential methods or considerations to include in my own current research.

Almost everyone in my cohort, myself included, are doing wet lab-based research that is more post-positivist in nature, which means that the research is based on empirical observation and hypothesis testing and verification. However, the methods and significance of our work is all unique. I am particularly interested in Juliana Bergmann’s research on light dependent muscle regeneration in females (as compared to male mice). Her work is interesting to me because my work on cardiac muscle cells is also involved with regeneration. Specifically, I am looking at a specific gene that is involved in cardiac development processes, which may have implications for creating a cardiac regeneration therapy. Her research makes me wonder: what is the effect of light on cardiomyocytes? Is there the potential for increased regeneration or growth at certain wavelengths and under certain conditions? I am also reminded of the fact that sex differences should be accounted for in my own research as well as I continue on this project in the future.

Working with a wide array of different disciplines in the health sciences inevitably comes with its benefits and challenges. I am really exposed to the breadth and depth of research within the vast “field” of health sciences research. At the same time, I can receive constructive feedback from researchers with a health science background but outside of my specific field of research, which can be beneficial to advancing or even broadening my research and its applications. Working with people from different disciplines can also be challenging, in the sense that it may be difficult to communicate research with those outside of my specific field. However, even this obstacle is something beneficial because through engaging with other researchers, I can practice communicating my research to a wider audience.