Ten middle and high school students spent the better part of the last week in July in the laboratory for the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology’s Young Scientist Research Workshop.
The weeklong event aims to promote STEM education and provide young scientists with hands-on experience in biomedical research. The program was led by Sujata Chaudhari, PhD, an associate professor in the department. She said five middle school students and five high school students participated in this year’s workshop, with nine students coming from Nebraska and one student traveling from Virginia.
The workshop—conducted in Durham Research Center II—was designed to familiarize budding scientists with scientific methodologies, enabling them to formulate hypotheses, design experiments to test them, analyze the outcomes, and draw appropriate conclusions.
“This year’s workshop was extremely successful,” Dr. Chaudhari said. “The students were enthusiastic, engaged, and eager to learn throughout the week. It was rewarding to see them become more confident in the laboratory as they learned new techniques and started thinking like scientists. By the end of the workshop, they were asking thoughtful questions, interpreting their own data, and presenting their findings with confidence.”
No major changes were made from the first workshop in 2025, because the format worked very well, she said. “We built on that success and continued to provide students with an immersive, hands-on research experience.”
Dr. Chaudhari said: “We were thrilled by the strong interest in this year’s workshop. It is encouraging to see so many students excited about biomedical research. We hope to continue offering the workshop each year and expand it as resources allow.”