Chris traveled to Orlando, Florida to attend the annual American Society of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (ASBMB) conference, which was being held in conjunction with the annual Experimental Biology conference. Chris attended the conference to present his research with Dr. Frank Naya on the role of the Dlk1-Dio3 noncoding RNA locus in regulating skeletal muscle differentiation. While at the conference, Chris was also able to learn about cutting edge science from posters, talks, and interactions with students and researchers from across the United States.
Attending this conference benefited me in three major ways. First, although I had attended a number of smaller symposia, this was the first major conference I had attended, so attending this conference gave me critical insight into what it’s like to attend a major conference. Having this knowledge is important to me because I intend to continue a career in academic research, which will entail attending large conferences such as the ASBMB/EB conference.
Second, the conference was an incredible learning opportunity that allowed me to absorb an enormous amount of information about the cutting-edge research being done in an incredible number of different topics of biology.
Third, presenting my work to researchers from around the world gave me greater confidence in myself as a scientist. It was very validating to see other researchers get just as excited about the findings of my research as I was about it, which helped me internalize that the work that I had done for my undergraduate research was both rigorous and important to the scientific community.
Had I not received the travel award, I would not have attended the conference. Attending the conference turned out to be an unexpectedly good networking opportunity since I ran into a number of other student researchers that I had met at regional symposia, so attending this conference gave us an opportunity to reconnect.
Chris was sponsored by Dr. Frank Naya of the Biology Department and BMB Program.