As an MCAT instructor at Kaplan Test Prep, my role was to teach in-person MCAT classes to small groups of students. Other responsibilities included providing support services to students, helping students develop comprehensive study plans and strategies that would allow them to accomplish their goals, and providing personalized tutoring services.

As a research assistant at Henry Ford Hospital, I performed clinical research under the guidance of Eric Makhni, M.D., MBA, and Vasilios Moutzouros, M.D., in the departments of Orthopaedic Surgery and Sports Medicine. My research studied the post-operative outcomes of Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) reconstructions and Rotator Cuff tears, particularly for adolescent and professional athletes, with the goal of using these outcomes to assess Patient Reported Outcomes and to compare pre- and post-injury performance statistics. My responsibilities in this position included administering electronic clinical surveys, conducting field studies, collecting surgical operating room photos, writing Institutional Review Board (IRB) and grant applications, and writing manuscripts and abstracts for research conferences and journal publications. This position also gave me opportunities to attend grand rounds and resident lectures, help edit sports medicine review articles, and create new research ideas and projects. I was also responsible for managing Dr. Makhni's website: ericmakhnimd.com.

As an undergraduate teaching assistant for the University of Michigan’s Program in Biology, I worked under the guidance of Jo Kurdziel, Ph.D., and Laura Eidietis, Ph.D., to teach BIOLOGY 171, an Ecology and Evolutionary Biology course that constitutes one part of the entire introductory biology course unit. My responsibility in this position was to lead weekly discussion sections for a group of approximately 25 students. These discussion sections were in addition to the three class lectures per week, and they were used to supplement lecture material and break down larger topics into smaller subtopics. I was also responsible for holding instructor office hours to individually communicate with students regarding their difficulties or concerns, writing, formatting, and vetting exam questions with the entire team of instructors, grading homework and other class-related assignments, proctoring exams, and assigning course grades.

While serving as an academic tutor in the University of Michigan Athletic Department’s Academic Success Program, I taught classes including Introductory Biology, General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Statistics, Mathematics, and Introductory and Upper-Level Spanish. My role in this position was to provide instructional course-learning to student-athletes outside class lectures. This included helping student-athletes better understand the material taught in class, teaching material in new ways to present alternate points of view, and helping student-athletes connect course material to practical uses and applications. To carry out these tasks, I met with students both individually and in small groups and held walk-in exam review sessions with larger groups of students. My responsibilities included creating supplementary practice problems to help students become familiar with exam-style questions, showing students strategies that could be useful for answering questions, helping students work through homework and class projects, and advising students about where to go if they needed extra help and support. As a result of my efforts and my dedication to my students’ success, I successfully helped all award-eligible student-athletes achieve Academic All-Big10 honors.

During the summer of 2016, I interned at the Van Andel Institute, a cancer research institute in Grand Rapids, MI. I worked in the lab of Structural Biology and Biochemistry under the guidance of Karsten Melcher, Ph.D., and H. Eric Xu, Ph.D., where I studied how protein structure and abnormal protein expression affects cellular signaling. My research focused on the Wnt signaling pathway, a signal transduction pathway that plays a major role in embryonic development, tissue regeneration, and many cancers. In this lab, my responsibility was to perform mutagenesis experiments to create abnormal Frizzled4 receptor proteins. These proteins are the key component in the Wnt signaling pathway, as they are G-protein coupled receptors that interact with extracellular Wnt ligands to activate downstream activity. The goal of my work was to assess if and how these abnormal proteins altered downstream expression compared to non-mutated Frizzled4 proteins. To do this work, I performed Western Blots, Immunoprecipitation assays, Polymerase Chain Reactions, Gel Electrophoreses, protein purifications, and Strep-tag affinity purifications. In addition to conducting my own research, this position also presented me with opportunities to attend many exterior research seminars and conferences, where I could learn from renowned experts in the field and gather advice that would provide useful information for my own studies. As a result of my work in this lab, I helped contribute to a publication detailing how extracellular Wnt ligands interact with the extracellular cysteine-rich-domains of the Frizzled4 receptor proteins to cause dimerization of Frizzled4 proteins and induce downstream signaling activity and expression. The link to the PubMed article is below: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?db=PubMed&otool=miuhfdlib&term=Wnt5a+promotes+signalsome

As a manager at the Leland Township Marina, I was responsible for both assisting boaters and overseeing all daily operations. This meant I was responsible for helping with docking procedures, pumping fuel, performing sewage cleanouts, washing boats, and training and managing new and existing employees. When I noticed employees were not properly caring for customers and their safety, or not following proper protocols, it was my role to approach and explain to them their duties and how to act appropriately. This required me to lead by example, plan and prepare for unexpected situations, quickly make decisions in fast-paced, high pressure environments, motivate my staff, and communicate well with others. Furthermore, this position required me to consistently meet with my harbormaster and fellow dockhands to develop strategy plans for docking boats and to implement new procedures that could improve customers’ experiences during their stay. I also operated all marine radio communications and was responsible for assigning dockage instructions to arriving boats. Furthermore, I also performed all opening and closing duties, answered phone calls and made reservations for prospective parties, approved and monitored cash-register transactions, created employee work schedules, transported customers to restaurants and nearby activities, and handled all customer complaints and concerns.

As a Certified Nursing Assistant (C.N.A.), my job was to assist nursing home residents with activities of daily living and monitor the well-being and support of each individual resident. Some of my responsibilities included helping residents with daily bathing and grooming, assisting residents with dressing and feeding, and monitoring vital signs. I also was responsible for comforting residents and providing guidance during times of despair, promoting functional independence, keeping a positive and optimistic attitude, and encouraging group interaction among residents by organizing activities such as arts and crafts projects and board games.

Prior to beginning my freshman year at the University of Michigan, I was one of 2,000 students selected out of an applicant pool of 12,000 to be accepted to the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP), a program that matches undergraduate students with faculty mentors in a variety of different research fields. I joined the Iwase lab in the Department of Human Genetics, where I worked under the guidance of Shigeki Iwase, Ph.D. My research aimed to determine the molecular cause of Alpha-thalassemia X-linked intellectual disability syndrome (ATRX), a condition that causes developmental delays, distinct craniofacial features, and genital anomalies. Specifically, my research investigated how the loss of ATRX protein causes heterochromatin spreading and alpha-globin gene silencing. The aim of my experiments was to compare subject RNAi SC cells to standard ATRX-deficient Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) cells to determine if Variable Number Tandem Repeats (VNTR’s), which distribute random heterochromatin spreading, are functionally related to alpha-globin gene silencing. My work in this lab showed that ATRX experiences a significant knockdown in the presence of RNAi, but not in the GAPDH control cells, thus supporting our hypothesis that VNTR’s are needed for alpha-globin gene silencing. Furthermore, I found that with the ATRX knockdown, random heterochromatin spreading occurs that “turns off” the alpha-globin genes. In this lab, I learned how to perform many laboratory experiments and procedures, particularly Western Blots, knockdown experiments using primary and secondary antibody tags, Polymerase Chain Reactions, Gel Electrophoreses, and dark film exposures. From this experience, I also gained a better appreciation for the value of laboratory research and its contribution to medical care. At the end of my time in the UROP program, I earned a final grade of “A” for both semesters of research.