EARLY OPPORTUNITIES

The chance to participate in the leading-edge research being conducted in UC Santa Barbara’s College of Engineering is an unbeatable opportunity for undergraduate students. The students themselves, including Janae Gayle, benefit in ways that, often, permanently change them, helping them to grow academically and personally while pointing the way to previously unimagined careers.

“My research is rewarding because, on a much bigger scale, it may lead to advances in medicine,” said Gayle, a first-generation college student who works in the lab of Beth Pruitt, a professor and chair of the Bioengineering Department. “Before beginning research, I had no experience coding. Through this experience, I have been able to understand certain software, and I’ve been able to produce code that makes data analysis possible.”

Gayle is one of 45 undergraduate students who are currently performing research in labs of bioengineering faculty. Many of them attended an inaugural event in fall 2024 that the department hosted to recognize and celebrate the undergraduate researchers. Nearly one-third of the current cohort have received fellowships and/or awards while attending UCSB, including Gayle, a member of the University of California’s Leadership Excellence through Advanced Degrees (LEADS) program and received the Best Poster Award during the Bioengineering Institute of California Symposium.

“The greatest highlights of being an undergraduate researcher are the amount of support that I’ve received and the connections that I’ve created,” added Gayle, who uses specific software to analyze the effects of certain perturbations on human-induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes. “The Pruitt lab made me feel a part of their team, and they offered guidance and mentorship. They helped me become a better researcher and improved my presentation and networking skills.”

As further evidence of the strength of the undergraduate researchers, four are members of the National Institutes of Health’s Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) undergraduate program, and two of them have already coauthored publications.

“With the average of four undergraduate researchers per core BioE lab, the number and quality of undergraduate students involved in research is amazing,” said Pruitt. “By working alongside faculty and graduate students, they are expanding their view of what is possible and what they are capable of achieving. It’s wonderful to witness them becoming more confident in themselves and realizing that their career and academic goals are obtainable.”