From Part-time Intern to Full-time Professional Research Associate: Jennifer Pearson
During spring 2008 semester, I was fortunate enough to obtain an internship as a research assistant for the Department of Psychiatry at UC Denver Anschutz Medical Campus. I worked alongside Dr. Kalynn Schulz, Post Doctoral Fellow, on numerous experiments studying the effects of prenatal stress on the behavior of adult rats. The purpose of these experiments was to determine if the deficits observed in prenatally stressed animals are similar to deficits observed in people with schizophrenia. Among the experiments we performed were tests to assess indices of anxiety and social deficits present in the animals. We also evaluated their learning and memory capabilities.
As an intern, I helped Dr. Schulz in the design and execution of these experiments. I was assigned to perform most of the data analysis after behavior testing had ended. The result was that I gained valuable experience in how to run an experiment and use state of the art software for analyzing results.
When the internship ended, I was offered a full-time position as a Professional Research Associate and am now second author on two abstracts: “Prenatal stress impairs memory for novel object spatial locations in adulthood” and “Gender-specific effects of prenatal stress on the social and anxiety-related behaviors of adult rats.” The first was presented at The Society for Neuroscience conference. We are working on papers for these experiments and expect to submit them for publication. We are also designing another experiment to begin next year.
This internship allowed me to learn things that no class could ever teach. It also allowed me to accomplish things that I only dreamed of; I will take this knowledge with me to graduate school and to my future career.