Currently a PhD candidate at Iowa State University, I have spent the last six years working in the field of toxicology, meeting great researchers, and learning about the latest discoveries impacting the world by attending the SOT Annual Meeting and ToxExpo. However, I personally feel that the SOT Annual Meetings are much more than just learning about latest developments in research in the field of toxicology and related sciences, as my favorite activity at the meeting is serving as a graduate peer mentor during the Undergraduate Diversity Program.
Organized by the SOT Committee on Diversity Initiatives (CDI), the Undergraduate Diversity Program invites undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds to attend a three-day program during the SOT Annual Meeting. The undergraduate students are grouped with a host mentor, a graduate student peer mentor, and a faculty advisor. The program allows students to get acquainted with the field of toxicology and learn about different areas of toxicology application, ranging from government to academia to industry. They get a chance to interact with current graduate students to ask questions about grad school, while also presenting their own research and visiting with graduate department representatives from more than 30 universities. And that’s just the first full day. As the Annual Meeting progresses, the participants also participate in guided poster tours, visit with ToxExpo exhibitors, and attend Scientific Sessions. This well-rounded experience provides a thorough knowledge and experience of being toxicologist.
I first volunteered for the Undergraduate Diversity Program at my first Annual Meeting in 2012 and discovered how much effort SOT puts into educating and inspiring undergraduate researchers. That year, one of my mentees was Naing Bajaj, who was working as an undergraduate researcher at New Mexico State University. “After attending [the Undergraduate Diversity Program], I got exposed to the real field of research,” she recalls. “I understood the value of the field of toxicology in today’s world. The program inspired me to continue working as a researcher.” Currently, she is working as research assistant at University of Arizona Sarver Heart Center and is applying to several medical schools. She mentioned that despite her current interest in medical school, she will always consider research as a priority and will keep pursuing her career in the fields to which she was exposed during the SOT Annual Meeting. After listening to Ms. Bajaj’s reflections, I realized how much I missed during my time as an undergraduate student in India and how much an opportunity such as the Undergraduate Diversity Program might have better prepared me for graduate school. As an undergraduate student, I had very little exposure to the vast field of toxicology. Even more, my undergraduate institute did not have research training opportunities available for students. After arriving in the US for my master’s program, I learned a great deal about the field of toxicology, and through my SOT experiences, I realize the true value of this field.
Since 2012, I have continued to serve as a graduate peer mentor, meeting more future graduate students and researchers. In 2015, I mentored Gifty Dominah, an undergraduate researcher from Oberlin College, Ohio. Within an hour of the program starting, she realized that her mentor, Gunnar F. Kwakye, PhD, Oberlin College, works closely with my PhD co-advisor, SOT Member Anumantha G. Kanthasamy, PhD, Iowa State University, and she was extremely happy and excited to see me mentoring her due to that connection. “I have always dreamt of meeting Dr. Kanthasamy,” she recalls. “We get very excited when we have Dr. Kanthasamy’s publications to discuss in our journal club.” Because I was serving as her mentor during the 2015 meeting, she had the chance to meet with my lab mates and our advisors and showed great enthusiasm at the idea of visiting our lab and perhaps applying for graduate studies. Since 2015, Ms. Dominah has completed her BA, majoring in neuroscience and minoring in African studies, and currently works as post-baccalaureate research fellow at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland.
Throughout its 28 years, the SOT Undergraduate Diversity Program has exposed more than 1,000 students to toxicology—some of whom have become leaders in toxicology and within SOT, including Jennifer L. Rayner, PhD, DABT, SRC Inc.; Adrian Nanez, PhD, Amgen Inc.; and Kristini Miles, PhD, DABT, Kimberly-Clark Corporation. All of these individuals participated in the SOT Undergraduate Diversity Program as students and have become leaders within the CDI and continue to be engaged in the diversity program. Such stories are the true testimony of the success of this program itself—and to SOT’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.
In my eyes, this commitment to diversity and inclusion is not just important, but necessary. Knowledge and science should know no boundaries, but yet, a 2014 Scientific American special report revealed that only 32% of the US positions in science and technology are held by females, which is rather shocking. Even more alarming is that Caucasian men alone occupy about 51% of total science and engineering workforce in US. SOT and CDI’s efforts to create awareness about toxicology in order to inspire a younger population of researchers from diverse backgrounds is commendable. I am encouraged and hopeful that SOT’s commitment and efforts towards diversity and inclusiveness will help the field of toxicology and science in general.
Vivek Lawana, BS, MS, is a student member of SOT. He currently is a PhD candidate in interdepartmental toxicology program at Iowa State University, studying molecular mechanisms of toxicity induced by environmental pollutants on neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation using various Parkinson’s disease models.