Parker Knight, undergraduate research student in Dr. Adriaan Bruijnzeel’s lab, has been accepted to three prestigious summer internships. The Big Data Summer Institute at the University of Michigan, the Undergraduate Research Program at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and the Undergraduate Research Program at Fred Hutch.
Knight has decided to attend the Undergraduate Research Program at Fred Hutch in Seattle, Washington. The Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) is an intensive, nine-week internship designed to provide research experience and mentorship for undergraduate students who are interested in biomedical research. Under the guidance of a faculty mentor, interns will complete an independent research project and present their findings at a competitive poster session.
Knight is paired with a faculty member at Fred Hutch who does research in biostatistics, his primary area of interest. With a major in mathematics and a minor in computer science, this pairing is a great fit for Knight. His faculty adviser at SURP works with research across many different fields and Knight will spend his first week studying different types of molecular data before deciding on a project for the summer.
When Knight began working in Dr. Bruijnzeel’s lab, he was working on behavioral experiments, studying the long-term effects of cannabis exposure on rats. Currently, he is working on analyzing different types of behavioral data, and writing R programs to make the analysis process easier. He plans to return to Dr. Bruijnzeel’s lab in the fall. Knight will graduate in 2020 and has plans to attend graduate school, likely in biostatistics.
Knight is a UF University Scholar in the College of Arts, his research project is Computer Science Education through Challenge-based Games. He is on the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Deans List, a member of the University Scholars Cohort and on the Center for Undergraduate Research Board of Students.