You are here

Week 1: An Introduction to the Research Process

For the first week of my internship I read a lot of articles from the environmental/chemistry/biochemistry literature to find out what I could about electron transport systems (ETS). It was an interesting experience, trying to piece together this picture of what an electron transport system is and how it relates to possible fields of research. After a week of researching I presented what I'd found to Dr. Tratnyek and the other students/interns on his team. Hopefully Dr. Tratnyek will find what I presented to be useful in deciding how best to proceed with his future research regarding ETS. 

I've realized that in order to know what you want to research (or should be researching) you need to comb through the available literature first, which can be time consuming. I've never had to pull specific information out of various articles/journals in order to piece together information about a subject before, so I think this first week provided me with some good exposure to what a future in research would be like. Despite having to wake up early, this first week went well! Let's hope the second week, and the rest of the summer, goes well too.