An innovative training initiative designed to bridge the gap between an undergraduate and doctoral degree program is driving transformative change in the biomedical sciences.
Now entering its second year, the UW–Madison Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) welcomes a small cohort of exceptional scholars who have earned their bachelor’s degrees and are looking to pursue doctoral degrees in biomedical science. PREP students come from backgrounds underrepresented in academic research, including racial minorities and people with disabilities or low socioeconomic status.
Over the course of a year, PREP offers scholars a rigorous research experience, enhancing their graduate program applications and refining their research interests. PREP also delivers wide-ranging professional development opportunities and individualized mentorship, tailored to equip participants with the necessary tools for success in PhD programs.
UW PREP is funded by a $250,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with matching funds from the School of Veterinary Medicine, School of Medicine and Public Health, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, and the Graduate School. This collaborative, campus-wide effort aims to diversify the PhD workforce specific to academic research.
Addressing a Critical Need
While UW boasts a wealth of resources and summer training programs for students across academic fields, PREP fills a crucial gap for those lacking access to resources to prepare for graduate training, or those who took a non-traditional academic path.
“We want to provide a supportive platform to nurture our scholars’ skills and build their confidence as scientists,” says Joan Jorgensen DVM’93. Jorgensen serves as the director of UW PREP and is a professor at the School of Veterinary Medicine.
UW PREP aims to recruit students with undergraduate degrees from less research-intensive institutions around the state and across the country, giving otherwise bright and curious scholars access to the multitude of research opportunities at UW–Madison.
“As the largest research institution in the state, UW–Madison recognizes the importance of standing by those students who need our support,” Jorgensen emphasizes.
Curriculum and Development
The first cohort of UW PREP scholars began in November 2022 after a surprise announcement that the NIH was able to allocate funds for the program. Despite the shortened timeline, program leadership quickly and diligently modified the curriculum to ensure the participants could fully benefit from the program, albeit in a condensed format.
The PREP team is looking forward to spacing the curriculum out for the incoming cohort, set to begin the year-long program this August. Nonetheless, the first round of scholars had the freedom to set their own goals and expectations for the experience, providing valuable feedback to program leadership along the way.
At the start of the program, each scholar met with the UW PREP team to create an individual development plan – detailing skills each scholar wanted to refine and how the program could support them in achieving those goals.
The PREP curriculum consists of several components. Scholars spend 75 percent of their time working in a research lab, studying topics ranging from the mosquito gut microbiome to adult infertility. As a part of their research experience, each scholar creates a poster they present at the SciMed Graduate Research Scholar Symposium, honing their communication skills.
Alongside their lab work, the remainder of the program focuses on professional development training. Scholars attend weekly PREP seminars, which include journal clubs and a range of professional development workshops, covering topics such as graduate school application and interview preparation, grant writing workshops, leadership training and more.
“Something exciting to see was how the scholars built respect for each other, even though they come from very different backgrounds,” Jorgensen says. “I learned as much from our scholars as they learned from us.”
Personalized Mentorship and Scholar Success
Furthermore, the scholars received invaluable one-on-one mentoring from the PREP leadership team, consisting of Jorgensen, Laura Hernandez (associate director, professor of animal and dairy sciences), Jenny Dahlberg (administrative coordinator), Amber Smith (curriculum director, associate director of WISCIENCE) and Katelyn Paz (program manager).
The high mentor-to-mentee ratio ensures that each scholar receives guidance from people with diverse backgrounds and expertise. Mentorship from the PREP leadership team complements the support and guidance scholars receive from their fellow lab members and primary investigators.
“Each member of the PREP leadership team plays a role in reading their personal statements and setting up mock interviews, intending to help the scholars get accepted into graduate programs,” Hernandez says.
One of the 2022-23 scholars, Alaina Houghton-Chamberlain BS’22, works in the Jorgensen lab at the School of Veterinary Medicine. She says her mentors helped her see herself and her contributions to science in ways she hadn’t before.
“I feel like a real scientist, moreso than I ever have before, and I am so grateful to the PREP program for showing me that I am a capable scientist and helping me share my work with the world,” says Houghton-Chamberlain. “I’ve made so many amazing relationships with the facilitators in the program, and I know they will continue to be amazing resources long after I’ve finished the PREP program.”
This fall, Houghton-Chamberlain will have a chance to put her newfound skills to the test as she pursues her PhD in the Endocrinology and Reproductive Physiology program at UW–Madison. Every member of the inaugural PREP cohort has either been accepted into a PhD program this fall or is planning to apply.
Integrating Into the UW Community
One of the most vital components of the UW PREP program is the emphasis it puts on networking and building connections with researchers from a variety of disciplines. This goal is made possible by the dozens of faculty members from across campus who have already expressed interest in taking on scholars of the program – including several researchers at the School of Veterinary Medicine.
To ensure PREP scholars get the most out of the program, each faculty mentor is required to have research mentorship training, focused explicitly on cultural awareness. Additionally, the scholars collaborate closely with graduate students in the SciMed Graduate Research Scholars program (SciMed GRS), which is comprised of underrepresented graduate students from nearly 40 departments across the UW campus.
“The PREP scholars, who are post-baccalaureate students, can look at the SciMed graduate students and envision themselves in their shoes, recognizing that there is a community in Madison for them,” Jorgensen says. “It creates an invaluable network of role models.”
Houghton-Chamberlain agrees. She joined the SciMed GRS program this fall, further demonstrating the importance of fostering campus and community connections.
Increasing Diversity, Nationwide
On a larger scale, the NIH backs PREP programs at universities nationwide, driven by a long-term vision to enhance faculty diversity in the biomedical sciences. There are currently 55 active programs totaling over $15M in funding.
Of note, a critical means toward obtaining NIH funding is the demonstration of considerable university support, including additional funds and enthusiasm and dedication from the campus community. The NIH review panels were impressed with the support displayed at UW–Madison.
“The NIH wants to foster workplace diversity specifically among Ph.D. graduates, including Ph.D. combinations like DVM/PhDs or MD/PhDs,” Jorgensen says. “Their goal is to track the progress of these individuals throughout their graduate school journey and beyond, with the idea that they would love to have more diverse faculty down the road.”
While this work is ongoing, programs like UW PREP are paving the way by creating opportunities and a support network for students underrepresented in biomedical research and academia.
“I’m one of many that these types of programs have touched, and they make a huge difference,” Hernandez says. “The NIH’s development of diversity-building programs is critical to current and future research scientists.”
The 2023-24 cohort comprises a select group of students from Wisconsin and Illinois.
– Maddie Arthur
2022-23 Scholar Profiles
Mitchell Armstrong
Lab: Briana Burton, Department of Bacteriology
Research project: Genetic elements affecting the ability of the soil bacterium Bacillus subtilis to take up DNA from its environment, modifying its own genetic code (a process called natural competence).
What did you take from PREP: “Being on campus was vital in helping me meet with different professors and find a lab that was a good fit both academically and personally.”
PhD program: Food Science at UW–Madison in the lab of Dr. Gulustan Ozturk, focusing on a subset of dairy science.
Alaina Houghton-Chamberlain
Lab: Joan Jorgensen, Department of Comparative Biosciences
Research Project: Understanding the mechanisms of ovary development in hopes of identifying how disruptions in fetal development can lead to adult infertility. My research interests include ovary physiology and development in humans but also across all animal species.
What did you take from PREP: “I learned how to be a better communicator through presentations, posters and writing; how to be a good mentor and mentee; and how to advocate for my field. We got the opportunity to present posters at poster sessions, attend eye-opening lectures, take field trips to biotechnology hubs and practice writing grants.”
PhD program: Endocrinology and Reproductive Physiology (ERP) at UW Madison as well as being a fellow in the Science and Medicine Graduate Research Scholars (SciMed GRS) Fellowship program.
Autumn Rain Chevalier
Lab: Judith Simcox, Department of Biochemistry
Research Project: Comparing metabolic markers from the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin to white populations to determine if there is a better way to assess diabetes and cardiovascular disease, as these metabolic markers are historically based on white male populations.
What did you take from PREP: “PREP has given me the confidence to talk about my research by providing a space to have conversations with other scientists, present posters, give chalk talks, create elevator sentences and present at journal club. I have learned a lot about myself as a person and a researcher through PREP because of all the opportunities it has to offer.”
PhD program: Plans to continue her research education and apply to graduate school in the next 1-2 years.
Jessica Lysne
Lab: Kerri Coon, Department of Bacteriology
Research project: Competition in the mosquito gut microbiome, with the goal of developing disease control measures in the future.
What did you take from PREP: “PREP helped give me direction during my gap year and gave me goals to focus on. It’s been a very guiding and supportive group that has given me feedback and advice as I navigated what to expect from a PhD program.”
PhD program: Biomolecular Sciences at Michigan State University (completing a rotation and then being matched with a lab.)
This article was featured in the Winter 2023-24 issue of On Call.