Ready to get back to the lab

ARVO is perfect timing for me as it comes at the end of my academic semester and energizes me for a summer in the lab.  As a professor at a primarily undergraduate institution, the summer months are the best time for me to write manuscripts and get new series of experiments off the ground.  This week has been a great opportunity to confer with collaborators and catch up with friends and colleagues.  And the meeting provides an annual kick start and focus for my work.

I also had the great fun this year of bringing undergraduate research students to ARVO for the first time.  The meeting normally falls during our finals week, so I have not invited students to join me in the past.  But I have two excellent research students this year, one interested in optometry, who were excited about the opportunity.  They had a great time presenting a poster in one of Wednesday’s lens sessions, and surprised at least a few people with the quality of research that can be done by undergraduate students.  In fact, Robert Langer, in his excellent Sunday keynote, mentioned an undergrad in his lab conducting some of the initial research into drug delivering microchip implants, and then going on to start a company that designs and sells them.

My students greatly appreciated interacting with both faculty and other students, and thoroughly enjoyed their first ARVO experience –  a nice tribute to the quality of this meeting and the Association.  But it would be nice if there were more social activities geared towards undergraduate and graduate students.  Perhaps a student social?  It was great to see a Pizza with the Experts session on teaching at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (with Dana Vaughan).

With the growth in undergraduate research in both small colleges and large universities, ARVO could help support and recruit a new generation of vision scientists by reaching out to these students.

Thanks again for a great meeting and see you in 2011.

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