UG Research: Like Riding a Roller Coaster, Sitting in the Lab
By Alma Matters
January 3, 2023
Justice Robinson, a Goldwater Scholar, is pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
After high school, Justice was forced to take up a job. During that period, a number of personal experiences & trauma motivated her to want to become a brain scientist.
So, after 6 years of selling insurance, Justice enrolled in Tulsa Community College, and opened the door to Research, The Goldwater Scholarship and more.
At Tulsa Community College, Justice was in a Biotechnology Program. During the summer she worked in a DNA Lab where she would do PCR or polymerase chain reaction on local plants, and then make a phylogenetic tree.
While analyzing the data, she realized that within the phylogenetic tree and the bioinformatic information, that there was a plant that didn't seem to be able to match.
And so Justice asked her professor if that meant that they were the first ones in the world to have done it. And she replied that it's quite possible that they were! So, they uploaded that DNA Sequence to verify.
This was the biggest thrill. Justice found that being so close to the edge of New Knowledge is like being on a roller coaster while sitting in a lab.
Listen to the Hi5s. 5 Highlights from the Podcast with Justice Robinson of UNC. (2.5-Minute Listen)
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