Education Efforts at HWI
by Eaton E. (Ed) Lattman
Spring 2011

It is sometimes said that young scientists have the most original ideas, and in areas such as mathematics there seems to be a lot of historical support for this assertion.  So if we want to continue to be creative in science, one good path is to learn how to stay young.  Botox aside, there is no magic recipe for maintaining or returning to youth.  The best we can do is to achieve youth by association – working with younger people helps keep the intellectual juices flowing, and lets us overcome inertia to think in fresh ways. 

Many a parent has learned to tweet only when provoked by a teenager. The youth we associate with are students, and we have much more to learn from them than tweeting.  Hauptman-Woodward conducts three distinct educational programs, and each one brings something important to us. The most visible is our Ph.D. program.  Serving as the Department of Structural Biology at UB, Hauptman-Woodward faculty members participate in the IGPBS graduate program at the University, and train graduate students. Critics of graduate education often suggest that universities train too many graduate students because they comprise a pool of cheap labor for professors’ laboratories. Whatever may be the truth of the over-training charge, graduate students are not regarded a cheap labor here at HWI.  First, they are not all that cheap, with stipend and tuition charges coming close to a technician’s salary. More importantly, their value lies principally in their intellectual curiosity and determination, rather than in any routine work they may perform.  If a lab needs to learn how to use a new method, more often than not it is a graduate student who becomes the first expert.  If advisors are not thinking perfectly clearly about their research plans, more often than not it is a student who pushes back. Graduate students are superb junior colleagues, not cheap labor.

Entering graduate school is a major commitment both for a student and for the program in which the student enrolls. Both sides benefit if the decision is an informed one.  Coursework is not very successful in predicting how well a student will flourish in a research environment.  The two require different skills, and research all day, every day, requires dedication and love of research that not every talented student has. So serious research experience is important for a student contemplating graduate school, and also for programs trying to evaluate that student. Sadly, it is a struggle for many undergraduate students to find the opportunity to do serious research. Under the leadership of Dr. Jane Griffin, Hauptman-Woodward’s summer intern program provides just such an experience for about 20 college students each year.  The students earn stipends while working in the laboratories of HWI scientists for 10-14 weeks.  The summer concludes with the students giving talks to the whole Institute describing their summer’s work.  I am always enormously impressed with the high quality of the talks, and with the poise of the students. They have clearly learned a lot.  Many come back for a second year.  Others find out that a career in scientific research is not for them - and discover this in a much less painful way than in leaving graduate school.

Unfortunately, the summer intern program is expensive – almost $5000 per student – and Dr. Griffin spends a great deal of time fund-raising for this exciting effort.

Finally, Dr. Bill Duax single-handedly runs a serious research program for high-school students, who come from a variety of schools in the buffalo area, The program is a unique learning experience that affords area high school students the opportunity to study evolution and bioinformatics right in the Duax laboratory.  Scheduling is tailored to the needs of the individual students, who can work on Fridays, after school, or during part of their summer vacations.

Among other achievements, Duax students have:

• Leveraged their experience to help secure thousands of dollars in scholarship money, often at top-tier colleges and universities.
• Competed as finalists in statewide science competitions.

Dr. Duax and his students are passionate about their work and their excitement is contagious. If you are interested in having a student presentation or in learning more about their work, please contact HWI at hwi-pr@hwi.buffalo.edu.