While many people think of research as an upperclassmen or graduate school activity, we want to nurture your curiosity whenever inspiration hits you. So today, we are walking all about research opportunities at Rose-Hulman, for undergraduates and more.

Dr. Ross Weatherman is the Head of the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry and a native of Indiana. His latest work involves leading a team of high-achieving students in researching the role of estrogen in the development and treatment of breast cancer. 

Dr. Weatherman chats with student hosts Isaac and Reese about the best parts of the Rose-Hulman curriculum, research, and labs! He shares with us how he found his way from pre-med to chemistry & pharmaceuticals, the benefits of starting research as an undergrad, programs to get a jumpstart on your research careers like Operation Catapult and Project SELECT.

 

Episode Quotes:

Advice for those who are looking into working on research

25:05: It's okay if you don't know what you want to do, and it's okay if it sounds like it's something you might be interested in, but you're not sure. And it's like, well, I don't know; I can't imagine myself being like that guy I see on TV—pretending to be a researcher, maybe actually is a researcher. But the reality is that everybody starts somewhere. And so if you've just been interested in how things work, and again, once you start it, you don't have to keep doing it. Some people start doing it, and it's like, man, nothing ever works. And I just get frustrated because even if it works once out of ten times, I expected it to work nine out of ten times. So, it's a mentality that some people have and some people don't. So just try it; you know, it's okay. It's low-stakes. You can probably learn something. It'll look good and see if that's something that you like.

 

Rose-Hulman's faculty curiosity fosters limitless research opportunities

14:16: The faculty here has an inherent curiosity that allows research to be done pretty much in anything. Even in the humanities, a lot of times it's "compare these books and try to figure out if you can find some connections or some context based on history." So, it's really exciting because these are the sorts of conversations you get into with people where you realize they're an expert in something that you know nothing about. It's just fascinating to talk to them and learn all about it.

 

How mentorship ignites Dr. Ross' passion for discovery

02:05: I realized that what I loved more than that graduate-level research with graduate students was finding excited undergraduates who said, "I want to discover something, right? I want to learn something new." And then show them how to do that—like how to start that process.

 

Show Links:

Operation Catapult | Rose-Hulman

Project SELECT | Rose-Hulman

Rose-Hulman Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships

 

Guest Profile:

• Ross V. Weatherman | Rose-Hulman
• The Weatherman Lab
• Dr. Ross Weatherman LinkedIn