The Lab Life

Many undergraduate researchers at Vanderbilt strive to defend an Honors Thesis, one of the most prestigious undergraduate academic achievements. In this season finale episode, host Richard Song sits down with graduating senior Tucker Apgar, who recently defended an Honors Thesis in Biochemistry. They discuss the steps behind obtaining an Honors Thesis: from solidifying a project with your mentor to writing a 25+ page research report to defending your thesis in front of a committee. They also talk about who should aim to pursue an Honors Thesis as well as how it may help your future career, regardless of your career plans going forward.

In this episode, host Richard Song discusses the science behind designing an award-winning research poster (2x Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Fair Winner) and the key to connecting with lay audiences when delivering a poster presentation about a complex research topic.

Throughout March, various summer undergraduate research programs will start handing out offers. Deciding which lab to commit to over the summer can be a really stressful time. In this episode, I break down important factors that you should consider about summer research programs to help you make this decision.

With the early February deadline looming for summer undergraduate research programs, Host and Podcasting Director talks about some great undergraduate research opportunities, how to write a successful research proposal, and how to secure letters of recommendation for your application.

In this episode, I recap my experience attending my first conference, the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting of 2022 in San Diego, California. I share some key takeaways that I got from the conference as well as three of my most favorite presentations!

In this episode, I talk about how I first discovered my love for neuroscience research, how I got started with research at Vanderbilt, my fMRI project in the Neuroimaging and Brain Dynamics Lab, my primary takeaways from completing my research project, and my future plans for research.

In this episode, I sit down for an interview with one of the undergraduate students in my research lab (Neuroimaging and Brain Dynamics Lab), first-year Terra Lee. Stay tuned to hear about Terra’s research on neuroscience + music-mood regulation, her background as a woman interested in medicine, as well as her funny story about how she got started with research!

This is the season finale! In part 1, we talk about the 7 traits of highly successful undergraduate researchers. In part 2 (7:48), I present my full results from my research at Boys Town, and I summarize my primary takeaways from the program.

As an undergraduate student, it is important to realize that no matter how experienced or how well researched you are, there will always be plenty of senior researchers who you can seek mentorship from. In part 1, I talk about the importance of research mentors as well as how to establish a strong relationship with your research mentors. In part 2 (12:00), I talk about some of the functional connectivity analysis that I performed this week, which involved me analyzing how the connection between different brain areas was impacted from transcranial direct current stimulation.

So you’ve taken everything that you’ve learned from this podcast and you’re finally ready to present your interesting findings! Great work, this is a huge milestone. Now the question becomes, how can you best present your research project in an effective and efficient way? In part 1, we talk about the process behind creating posters and writing papers. In part 2 (16:25), I share a very interesting interpretation of my results, and highlight specific brain regions that I personally found to be vital to working memory that are impacted by parietal lobe transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). So without further ado, let’s discuss!