Columns:: Thirteen undergraduates join CURO apprenticeship program

since 12/15/98

Columns::October 21, 2002

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Thirteen undergraduates join CURO apprenticeship program

By Joelle Prine
jprine@uga.edu

Alicia Gourdine, a political science and international affairs major, is spending her first semester in college on a research project with faculty mentor Christopher Allen, who had co-written a book she used in her comparative government class in high school. Now she and Allen are studying how the United States can employ new ways to increase governmental efficiency and representation.
Alexander Nunez, a history and political science major in the Honors program, is working with philosophy mentor Bradley Bassler on the distinction between the finite and the infinite by looking at the views expressed by philosophers of different eras.
These two students are among a group of 13 first-year students at the university who have been given the opportunity to develop a mentoring relationship with a faculty member and gain research experience through the Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities apprenticeship program.
“This program has given me the means to be able to pursue something I really love doing,” says Gourdine, who plans a career in politics. “Without the financial assistance associated with the CURO apprenticeship, I don’t know that I could devote so much time and effort to this amazing project.”
Allen, an associate professor in the new School of Public and International Affairs, is also happy with the research partnership. “Not only is Alicia an enthusiastic and diligent worker, she gets to assist me in finding--and discussing with me--material for two different research projects,” he says. “The CURO program helps demystify the research process so that the students can see that good research needs to proceed from a clearly defined research question.”
For a second year, five of the students in the CURO apprenticeship program are designated biomedical apprentices, with financial support from UGA’s Biomedical and Health Sciences Institute. These students are conducting projects that range from studying high-throughput DNA sequencing of the sorghum plant to the developmental neurobiology of pain.
Biomedical apprentice Natasha Chua Tan has been working under the direction of Lee Pratt and Marie-Michèle Cordonnier-Pratt in plant biology. She is responsible for obtaining DNA sequences of the sorghum plant to discover new genes and identify those that represent new members of the Pratts’ collection of about 17,000 genes.
“I chose to work in the Pratt lab because it offered a wealth of learning opportunities that many high school students and undergraduates usually do not get exposed to,” says Chua Tan. “It is a wonderful experience working alongside undergrad and grad students, professors, technicians and researchers exploring at the cutting edge of their field.”
In fact, many of the Pratts’ undergraduate research assistants started out as CURO apprentices and continued their research experience in the plant biology lab after the apprenticeships ended.
That is why the Pratts requested and received a supplemental grant from the National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates Program to support three other CURO apprentices who work alongside Chua Tan. The award also provides extra funding for graduate student Rebecca Ritter, who acts as the liaison between CURO and the students.

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