Greetings from HPREP’s Executive Directors!
Welcome to this year’s edition of HPREP at Harvard Medical School! In previous iterations of HPREP when we’ve been able to meet in person, we’ve focused on hands-on activities and labs to give students a tangible sense of what science and medicine are like. This year, we wanted to keep as much of that tangible experience as we could with a remote program. We mailed out lab kits to students so that they can follow along and do a real experiment in their own home. We are also keeping the popular patient simulator activity, which looks like it will continue to be a cool and engaging module even as a virtual session. No matter what format our programming may take, our mission remains the same — to provide a high quality exposure to health science careers for students from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds who are interested in making medicine or science a part of their futures!
We the executive directors thought we would kick things off in this blog by introducing ourselves!
I’m Gloria, and I’m a third-year graduate student studying the biophysics of chromosome segregation errors. I oversee the program management, media, and finance aspects of HPREP. I’ve had a lot of fun getting to know the many fun people that make up HPREP over the years, and though the setting is different this year, I’m hopeful that we can still get that lively dynamic virtually! I’ve been really impressed by how our amazing volunteers have stepped up to adapt our program to a virtual format. Our media director, Mahaa, made beautiful HPREP-themed virtual backgrounds for students and mentors to use on Zoom, and set up awesome new efforts like this Medium blog and monthly newsletters! Ashley, our finance director, has been managing our budgeting and fundraising despite major changes in our plans for the year! And Kim and Kerry, our program management directors, have been working tirelessly to ensure that everyone’s virtual experience is as smooth as possible, from training mentors on Zoom usage, to organizing welcome package assembly. I’m so thankful for this HPREP community, and I’m so excited to invite 100 new students into our big HPREP family!
My name is Elizabeth, and I’m a fifth-year graduate student researching the biochemistry of brain development. I help out with the mentoring programming and alumni outreach initiatives of HPREP. I’ve been involved with HPREP for four years, and this is my first year as an HPREP executive director! In the past I’ve been a mentor, helped out as a sub pod leader, and been a mentoring director. For me the coolest part of HPREP is getting to know the amazing students every year, hearing about their accomplishments and aspirations, and helping them navigate towards their goals. This year I’m pleased and proud that we are able to put the program on virtually, and even increase the size of the program to welcome more students than we ever have before! It’s a real testament to our amazing volunteers and their hard work. The mentoring directors Ayantu, Emily, Gerry, Harry, Meredith and Sara recruited 100 volunteer mentors so that each student could have their own mentor to give them individualized advice and be a resource for students that we hope lasts long after our HPREP closing ceremonies. I love HPREP because it gives me a sense of connection to students and volunteers from all over the Boston area. I’m excited to continue getting to know everyone this year!
I’m Leonard, a third-year MD/PhD student in Immunology. I’ve been interested in medicine since high school, but I had little idea what the process of actually becoming a doctor was like. I also didn’t know much about science or research. I was so fortunate to be accepted to a university that had a medical school and a bunch of people doing laboratory research. And luckily, I had undergrad mentors who took a ton of interest in my success as a future physician and scientist. Without the guidance they provided, I definitely wouldn’t be here today. I think it’s important to pay it forward and provide similar opportunities for students who might be interested in joining health professions, which is why I volunteer with HPREP! I want to give huge shoutouts to the directors I’m overseeing this year. They’ve all gone above and beyond in making HPREP a great program for you! Catherine, Leeza, and Marisa spent countless hours contacting schools and coordinating the over 50 application readers who helped to select our amazing class of students. Adam, Della, Fasih, Karthik, Priya, and Ryan have been recruiting the most passionate lecturers and discussion leaders in addition to transforming our HPREP curriculum into an online format. Marie-Angele and Sayo, our diversity, equity, and inclusion directors, ensured appropriate training for our application readers and for our mentors. They’re also hard at work finding innovative ways to maintain HPREP beyond the 10 Saturdays we have together. It’s extremely inspiring seeing the passion our directors and volunteers have for HPREP. And I can’t overstate how unbelievably energizing it is seeing the excitement and enthusiasm our students all brought to HPREP on the first day. Keep bringing that energy throughout the season!
My name is Stan. I’m a fourth-year PhD student in Biological and Biomedical Sciences. In the lab, I study the genetic contributors to the development and progression of ALS by examining and genetically editing stem cells that I differentiate into motor neurons. I’ve always been very curious about the underlying biology that makes the human body do what it does; I started off my educational career during my undergraduate years as an engineer, and then got more and more involved in the molecular biology and research side of things as time went on. As I trained I became increasingly aware that there were very few black scientists, even at the top tier institutions where I was at, and decided to make it part of my mission to be a mentor to younger people of color interested in being scientists and to advocate for change where I could to increase diversity wherever I was working. So, when I entered grad school, I got involved with HPREP! This is my second year as an executive director, I have previously served as a mentor, pod leader, and as a mentoring director. This year I’m excited to work very closely with the Special Events and Evaluations teams. Our special events directors, Megan and Sepideh, have done amazing work to rise to the challenge of adapting our special workshops on professionalism, test prep, and college prep to a virtual format. They were key in working to make sure our highly rated patient simulation exercise, in collaboration with HMS MedScience, was still accessible to our cohort this year. They will also be bringing you a virtual career fair towards the end of the season, so you’ll see more of them and their awesome work after this week. The Evaluations crew is spearheaded by Juli and Valentina, who have also done an excellent job in coordinating our volunteers to collect feedback that you students have about the program and make sure we’re staying on track. We hope that the virtual experience of HPREP is an excellent one. If it’s not, please tell us! Our crew is always looking out to make things better. I’m so amazed at our wondrous directors and volunteers and grateful that we are able to continue offering this program even during a pandemic. I’m excited to make history with everyone with the first HPREP online and the biggest class of HPREP we’ve had to date! Welcome to the HPREP family — I’m excited that we get to take this journey together this year!
Now that you know us, we’d love to get to know you! What got you interested in the health sciences? What do you want to be when you grow up? What was your favorite part so far about HPREP? Did you do something cool in or out of HPREP that we might like to hear about? You can submit any story you’d like to share with us and we’ll post it on this blog! You can even include pictures and we’ll include those too. Find more information about blog post guidelines here and submit your idea about your blog post here to get started!
We look forward to hearing the stories of our awesome cohort of HPREP students as we progress through this year’s season!
