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Episode Notes | Transcript | AskTheGuest

Hi Fives (5 Highlights) Click for 3-Minute Listen

Elizabeth Vargis is an Associate Professor in Biological Engineering at Utah State University.

Prof. Vargis was very excited when she started her undergraduate study in Bioengineering. While she made progress in her classes, she felt she had lost her way. Then, she started doing undergraduate research and applying what she was learning in the classroom.

Research was a Life Changer!

On this podcast, Prof. Vargis talks about:

Why UG Research is Important;
How the Vargis Lab fosters undergraduate research;
Student Success Stories;
Finally, the skills needed for research.

Hi-Fives from the Podcast are:

Importance of UG Research
USU Support for UG Research
Institutional or Departmental?
Cross Discipline
Skills Needed for Research

Episode Notes

Episode Title: Prof. Elizabeth Vargis of USU on UG Research: An Imperative as an Undergraduate Student.

Research was a Life Changer!

Prof. Vargis joins us on our podcast to talk about her background, UG Research in Vargis Lab, Resources for Students, Success Stories, and finally the Skills needed to do research.

In particular, we discuss the following with her:

Prof. Elizabeth Vargis’ Background
UG Research at USU
Student Success Stories
Skills for Research

Topics discussed in this episode:

Introducing Prof. Elizabeth Vargis, USU [0:36]
Hi Fives - Podcast Highlights [2:02]
Professional Background [5:00]
Importance of UG Research [9:38]
USU Support for UG Research [13:57]
Institutional or Departmental? [17:51]
Cross Discipline Research [20:12]
Success Stories [24:43]
Skills Needed for Research [34:20]
Why is Research Inspiring? [41:06]
What’s Next? [45:43]

Our Guest: Elizabeth Vargis is Associate Professor in Biological Engineering at Utah State University. Prof. Vargis graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in BioEngineering from the University of California Berkeley and Masters and PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University.

Memorable Quote: “...the student may not feel comfortable speaking up to me, or, you know, disagreeing with me, but I, you know, I am at the stage where I've been disagreed with so many times. And, you know, my goal is not to be right, my goal is to do good research. And so that, so to me, it's all communication. And that's number one.” Prof. Vargis.

Episode Transcript: Please visit Episode’s Transcript.

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Episode Transcript

Transcript of the episode’s audio.

<Start Snippet> Elizabeth V 0:14

When she was the third person on a project, and she started to ask a couple of questions, that and then, and then those questions led to changes in our protocol and changes in the way we thought about some of the research, I think that gave her that spark of weight. I said something and they listened. And then, and then we changed everything because of it.

Venkat 0 :36 [Introducing Prof. Elizabeth Vargis, USU]

That is Elizabeth Vargis, Associate Professor in Biological Engineering at Utah State University.

Hello, I am your host, Venkat Raman.

Prof. Vargis was very excited when she started her undergraduate study in Bioengineering.

While she made progress in her classes, she felt she had lost her way.

She was resigned to slogging through coursework, to earn her degree.

Then, she started doing undergraduate research and applying what she was learning in the classroom.

This, she says, was a Life Changer!

Today, she runs the Vargis Lab where she mentors and works with Undergraduate and Graduate Students.

Venkat Raman 1:31

Prof. Vargis joins us on our podcast to talk about her background, UG Research in Vargis Lab, Resources for Students, Success Stories, and finally the Skills needed to do research.

Before we jump into the podcast, here are the Hi-Fives, Five Highlights from the podcast:

Elizabeth V 2:02 [Highlights - Hi Fives]

[Importance of UG Research]

For me, I felt that, you know, I was really excited to do bioengineering. And then I kind of lost my way, I felt like just taking these classes. And I don't understand why. But I have now committed to this degree and what I'm not going to change. So I'll just, you know, slog through this, and it's awful, but you know, I'll just carry on. And then when I started to do undergraduate research, I saw the application of so many different courses and so many components of the courses.

[USU Support for UG Research]

I will provide the support in terms of my own mentorship, and then in terms of our lab space and some of the supplies. And then if the student is willing, then we you know, we start out really small, we put them on really, you know, smaller projects, and then they can be competitive for these smaller awards. But really 500 to $1,000 gets them just enough to do the projects that they're interested in.

[Institutional or Departmental?]

Now, a lot of the students that we do start to hire, what happens is after a year or so they think about Wait, I really liked this project. And this is really working well, I was just I was going to graduate and get a job. But I really want to see this end, I want to see I want to put you know, a period to this work. And so they'll stay on for a master's. And so

[Cross Discipline]

I would say maybe 40% of everything we do is cross discipline. And it it comes in on both ends. And so what I mean by that is, so my research is focused on developing lab based models of disease. And so what I want to do is kind of bridge the gap between our understanding of what happens in humans by looking at cells in a laboratory setting.

[Skills Needed for Research]

For my research group, the biggest skill is communication. And I have multiple ways of communicating. You know, obviously the Cup last couple of years, it's always been on Zoom, but I have a meeting time set up with my students. I have these group meetings that are weekly, I have individual meetings as with all my graduate students, and then as needed with undergraduate students.

Venkat Raman 4:21

These were the Hi5s, brought to you by “College Matters. Alma Matters.”

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Venkat Raman 4:32

Now, I'm sure you want to hear the entire podcast with Professor Vargis.

So without further ado, here's the podcast with Professor Elizabeth Vargis!

-----------------

Venkat Raman 4:44

So if you're ready, we can jump right in.

Elizabeth V 4:48

Yeah, let's do it.

Venkat Raman 4:50

Cool. So let's start maybe with your background, give us a little bit of flavor, How you got to where you are today.

Elizabeth V 5:00 [Professional Background]

Yeah, so I did my bachelor's in bioengineering at UC Berkeley. And during that time, as a junior, I started doing undergraduate research at in a biology lab in the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. And then I continued doing research there for about a year after I graduated. And during that year in between, I applied and decided to go to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, for my masters and PhD in Biomedical Engineering.

Venkat Raman 5:36

Cool. How did you get into bio engineering and biomedical? How did that happen? Was that something that you were passionate about? Or is that something you kind of walked into?

Elizabeth V 5:50

I kind of stumbled upon it. I mean, you know, I, back back then, in 2000, when I, I went to college, I it wasn't, it wasn't brand new, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't a solid engineering degree, like mechanical engineering, which has been around for so long. But I really liked the idea of the creativity in engineering. So the the ability to solve problems, but to then to think about it in terms of science, and specifically biology, and then even more specifically, human health. So I, I wanted to kind of merge those two fields. And, you know, I, let's just be honest, my dad is an engineer, and my mom is a microbiologist. And so we made weird things with flashlights, and, you know, batteries, and then my mom would talk up talk about tapeworms at dinner. And so it was really the marriage of those, my parents, you know, that that made me think about, okay, I wanted to do engineering, I wanted to have this, this problem solving background, but then I wanted to really focus on, you know, on humans on human beings.

Venkat Raman 7:06

Fair enough. Fair enough. So, how did you make the decision to go into academia? You didn't pursue any industrial route?

Elizabeth V 7:18

Right. Yes, I definitely had had considered industry, especially during that year, in between my undergraduate and graduate work. And I really liked the idea of the independence that academia can give in terms of deciding on the research topics that really interested me. And so I liked the idea of, of leading a research group. And so my, my relationship with my undergraduate research advisor, really changed, you know, the trajectory, the pathway of my life, and I liked my relationship with her and how that blossomed, and, you know, affected me and I wanted to provide something similar for students who may not feel like industry is the right. fit for them may not, you know, I had also considered maybe medical school or, you know, some sort of one of the professional programs. And it just never felt right, until I started to do undergraduate research. And, you know, I found myself waking up early, and, you know, I was paid for a certain amount of hours, and I was always going way overboard, because I was just excited to do this research and are, you know, I wasn't paid for those extra hours, I just wanted to be there. And I had no, I had not had many experiences, where it just was so clear that this is what I wanted to do. And so, when I started to do my masters and my PhD, you know, I had also considered I could do some, you know, I could be a higher level person, it's an industry and I just, I wanted to be able to be a part of a research lab, and it didn't necessarily have to be an academia could have been at one of the national labs, you know, a really high research group. But you know, after all that time, it worked out to be in academia. And I just knew that I had to be a part of a strong research program.

Venkat Raman 9:22

So, obviously, undergraduate research has shaped you during your undergraduate years and beyond. Now, do you think this is for all students or how do you see undergraduate research as it applies to your students today?

Elizabeth V 9:38 [Importance of UG Research]

I think I think my story is, I mean, I, yeah, so I think my story is probably common, but it doesn't necessarily mean that everybody who does undergraduate research then gets a PhD and goes into academia. I think that undergraduate research is the best way Applying what we are being taught in our, in our courses. And especially for me, I felt that, you know, I was really excited to do bioengineering. And then I kind of lost my way, I felt like just taking these classes. And I don't understand why. But I have now committed to this degree and what I'm not going to change. So I'll just, you know, slog through this, and it's awful, but you know, I'll just carry on.

And then when I started to do undergraduate research, I saw the application of so many different courses, and so many components of the courses. So when you do a group group project, and you know, that's not a fun experience, or you're doing a presentation, and you have to talk about this project, or this paper that you read, then you start doing undergraduate research music, oh, that's really important, I need to be better at this or this, I have to rely on these people. And so having managerial skills or communication skills, and so undergraduate research is a really safe way to apply what you're learning in your courses, because you're not, you're not necessarily it's not a job where you can, you know, this is like your livelihood. Now, this is something that you do as an undergraduate student, to really, it's like the other side of what you were learning in your classes. Now, it's the application of that. And so for students to be able to take advantage of those opportunities, I think it's really important and really fundamental, you know, should almost be, I don't want to say require, but it should almost be a, you know, an equally important part of the classes. And so, yeah, for me, it changed my life because of, I had not even considered that. So even though my parents have education, and they, you know, they, they are immigrants, and they came to America for education, undergraduate research, and the idea of doing academia was not something that we talked about. But then once I started to do that I decided this was, so this was so exciting. And then, you know, all encompassing, and there was no end to what I could do in terms of research and the questions that I had. And so that changed my life, and undergraduate research definitely fit in. But for my students that I have, in my, that come through my research lab, now, it can be something where, oh, you know, research is not for me, or this part of research is for me, when I get to talk to people from the companies that sell us our equipment, or supplies. And there, I talked to technical experts, that's the job for me, I want to be able to do that, or I really liked these five assays that we run to detect proteins, I want to be an expert on that. So then they go out and find a job where that's what they do, or they develop new assays. And so I think that, you know, it allows, there's so much that undergraduate research can be and to find, to be able to even cross things off your list by doing undergraduate research is extremely important. And like I said, the other side of being in classes, is being involved in some sort of, you know, research. And you might as well do it at the school that you're at, or maybe at some research program. I just think that that's it's imperative as an undergraduate student.

Venkat Raman 13:26

Let's talk about Utah State. I talked to Alexa Sand, about the different kinds of infrastructure and resources that are available within the university. How, as you as a faculty member, and as a mentor, and as a researcher, how do you how do you? How do you see that? I mean, what kind of stuff does the university infrastructure provide? And what do you know, and what are the things that your lab has to provide for?

Elizabeth V 13:57 [USU Support for UG Research]

Yeah, so Utah State has a you know, as Alexa, Dr. Sands mentioned, I'm sure as long history of supporting undergraduate research and to me, it's always fascinating because it happens at so many different levels. So it happens at the whole university level from the Office of Undergraduate Research. They have these independent awards that students can apply for, and the student themselves, themselves get a stipend, but there's also about $500, for supplies for the research group, which can go along with it. But then the Office of Research also supports undergraduate student travel to conferences, or to do any sort of, you know, research out field research. But then there's also the honors program, there's research fellowship programs, and then at college, the College and the department level, there's also support. And so our college the engineering college, will support a student for three semesters to do to really focus on research and that's another sort of like fellowship program, and our department will provide funds for the students to travel to present their research at conferences regionally or nationally. And so, for me, as a faculty member, I am totally on board with Utah State's mission and our role as the land grant university in the state of Utah. And so we, I am happy, and I have this privilege of providing these opportunities for students. And so I have, I have little, I have like, I will provide the support in terms of my own mentorship, and then in terms of our lab space, and some of the supplies, and then if the student is willing, then we, you know, we start out really small, we put them on really, you know, smaller projects, and then they can be competitive for these smaller awards, but really 500 to $1,000 gets them just enough to do the projects that they're interested. And then then we move on, like I use their, their results to we write papers together, we then apply for bigger grants, and then, you know, they pay it forward, and they provide the infrastructure and the supplies for the next set of undergraduate students. And so the, you know, when we, when you think about 500, to $1,000, that's not a lot of money, especially in the biological world where one assay can last, you know, $500, to just look for five proteins or something that seems like, that's just Well, that's there it goes that, but I can provide so many of the other things that you know, a pipette tips, like the stuff that we use all the time, so that they can provide this one special thing that they're interested in, that sometimes it's all that we need to move on and get something bigger. And so Utah State does a really good job of providing the support at different levels. And I'm extremely happy, because sometimes I might be able to provide the supplies, but I can't hire a student. So a lot of their support comes to providing the financial support for the students, if the student doesn't also need to have two other jobs, to be able to, you know, pay for their rent, they focus on the research, they have the support financially from the university, I provide some of the supplies, the student is providing way more of the, you know, the precious material in terms of their time and their their mind. And then the other, we all work together and it's you know, it's a success. So that's how I consider it.

Venkat Raman 17:35

Do you also get prospective researchers through this process? Or are they sort of coming in from the department and stuff like that? I mean, is it is it sort of institutionally flowing? Or is it sort of departmental

Elizabeth V 17:51 [Institutional or Departmental?]

I get, I get a lot of our department is very focused on undergraduate research. And so we start talking about opportunities for students during their freshman and sophomore years in our biological engineering classes. But, you know, we have an up to date website, you know, right now, I'm working with two students in the College of Science. And so we have, I have no problem taking on students, it's just if they know about our research, and they want to be involved in that. Now, a lot of the students that we do start to hire, what happens is after a year or so they think about Wait, I really liked this project. And this is really working well, I was just, I was going to graduate and get a job. But I really want to see this end, I want to see I want to put, you know, a period to this work. And so they'll stay on for a master's. And so we have a concurrent bachelor's master's program. And so they will stay on for and they haven't, they've already done so much research that the Masters is a thesis based Master's. And so they have to publish and submit a thesis that's research based, but they've already done so much work, that they do some extra courses to fulfill their Master's course requirements. They're already doing the research. So they might spend two or three semesters more and then get a bachelor's and a master's out of this research. And so it's kind of again, like a win. It's a win win, because I have this undergraduate student, they're doing really great work. Maybe I don't even have to say goodbye to them when they graduate because there's gonna stay on for another year, year and a half and do research and get a graduate degree. Again, they're they're really focused on research during their masters. And so now I have a new graduate student who was just a prospective undergraduate researcher in my lab and so from Yeah, again, as a as a faculty member, I just, I love this. I love the support that Utah State and the and just like the understanding that undergraduate research is an important part of what we do as faculty at Utah State has just been a very rewarding it's been really rewarding for me

Venkat Raman 20:00

How much of the stuff that you do is cross discipline? Is that quite a lot? Just trying to get a sense of, yeah, stuff that you do.

Elizabeth V 20:12 [Cross Discipline Research]

So we try to do, we have, I would say, maybe 40% of everything we do is cross discipline. And it, it comes in on both ends. And so what I mean by that is, so my research is focused on developing lab based models of disease. And so what I want to do is kind of bridge the gap between our understanding of what happens in humans by looking at cells in a laboratory setting, and have the cells growing in both a normal environment. So okay, this is how the cells behave normally, everything's fine, they're happy. But then what happens to cause them to either behave inappropriately? Or how do they respond to stressors like UV light or radiation? And then then what happens? So that can treat that? Can we prevent it? Can we stop it from getting worse. So those are our questions. And so you have the expertise and growing the cells, but there are other things that we need, that we may not have the expertise in. And so one of these, one of our recent collaborations is trying to develop these membranes that the cells can grow on. But that can be really thin membranes, and that tune but the thinness or the thickness of them, because as people age, these membranes become thicker. And so we have, we have a collaborator in the biology department, and he develops hagfish slime membranes. And so we can make these really, really thin. And that is, you know, supposed to replicate a normal situation. And as somebody ages, the that membrane becomes thicker and more brittle. And now we're going to see how the cells respond to that. And so that's a collaboration that really is from the beginning, then I have these collaborators, and they're, they tend to be medical doctors, because everything needs to then relate to human health. So if we're doing these weird things with hagfish, slime in our basement lab, and then we tell a medical doctor, and they go, that's not relevant, that doesn't help us, then you feel like, okay, we haven't, what have we contributed? Nothing we've done, we've just done some cool science, but that doesn't, it's not going to translate. And so have I have collaborators at different institutions, or Vanderbilt and the University of Utah and their medical doctors, and we sometimes involved in at the beginning, but really, we focus on the results side, and we say, Look, this is what we did. And here are our results. Does this help? Does this make sense? And then sometimes they'll go like, Oh, you know, we had we had membranes a long time ago, and they were really large, you know, we're talking like 10 orders of magnitude too large. And they were like, No, I mean, anybody can do that. That's fine. But that's not helpful. Can you make this really thin? No, we can't, but we need to have somebody else involved. And they know we can work with them. And now when we give them that result, and we say, Look, we grew our cells on these really thin membranes, now see these results, then they go, okay, yes, that's a good target, because this company is developing this drug to target these proteins. And so that, so I have, I have to rely on collaborators on both ends. And it's also very important for undergraduate and graduate students to be able to talk, not in our strange engineering language, but to talk to all different people, and be able to say to, you know, wear the hat to talk to the medical doctors who are super busy, but are very focused on treating patients that state that is who they see every day. So how do we talk to them? Versus how do we talk to a biologist who could, you know, doesn't care that we're going these, you know, these are our restraints, and these are our quality control, they, they are developing these signs, and that's cool. That's, that's what they want to do. So they love to bring it back to the students, they also get another layer of how to talk to people who have different expertise, but who are all trying to work together and, you know, help us achieve our goal.

Venkat Raman 24:25

Any, you know, stories or vignettes about student researchers in your labs that you might call? I hate using the word success, but you know, positive results and been, you know, took it to the next level kind of thing.

Elizabeth V 24:43 [Success Stories]

Yeah. Yeah, there are, there are so many and I think again, you know, I mentioned about being at a land grant institution, and I think we get, we get so many students who have such a diverse background, so There's a lot of students from rural communities, and they just kind of stumbled into doing undergraduate research because somebody, a faculty member or an advisor told them, they should try this out to this. They come into a lab meeting and they go like, Oh, this is weird, I don't know, anything that's happening. And then suddenly, they're leading the lab in the next year or something. And so, you know, I think from just to focus on a couple, you know, I, I've had just so much so many outstanding female researchers, and as an engineering department, in northern Utah, we have a pretty awful number when it comes to gender distribution. I mean, and that's at all levels, that's at the undergraduate level, graduate, I'm the only female faculty member in my department, you know, so it's, it's not great. And, and I don't necessarily go out of my way to focus on female students. But you know, you, I know that there's a draw. And I know that for me, personally, I was drawn to female researchers and female supervisors.

Elizabeth V 26:03

And so I have had so many outstanding female researchers.

And one of them is one of those stories where she started as an undergraduate researcher. And then I feel like my first impression of her was she, I felt like she literally stumbled into my group meeting. I'm very open about my group meeting times. And I posted on Twitter and my website, and the lab or the department website. And it was summer, and she just kind of walked in, she was like, 30 minutes late. And at the end, I said, you know, she came up to me, and she introduced herself and everything. And I was like, Yeah, you know, just so you know, lab meeting actually starts at 2 not 230, you know, if you're going to be able to make it, and she looked at me, and she was like, No, on your website, it starts at 230. And I was like, oh, okay, I must have made a mistake. And so like, No, I had not made a mistake. So my first question was heard of her was, like, you know, kind of made a mistake at the time, but then she thought that I made the mistake. And so I was like, Okay, it's probably not gonna go very far. You know, whatever, she can come to a group meeting, that's fine. She can just,

Elizabeth V 27:05

and you know, and I think, you know, like, I don't think she'll mind me saying this. But like, she was here taking summer classes, and it was actually she was told that this was a, this is something to think about doing undergraduate research. Like I said, she might have stumbled into the lab.

So now let's fast forward. She is at the end of her third year of her PhD in my research lab, she just finished her proposal. She's a PhD candidate, she's about to submit her first paper. She is an excellent undergraduate researcher, she has a ton of awards, as she was, you know, as for her scholarship, in terms of just her GPA, but then also, she has been on paper as an undergraduate. And so I don't know what she was necessarily looking for when she came into the lab.

But then what happens is, ok there's this project, and there are two students on it. And they just, their schedules aren't working, and they just need one other person to come in and help them out for like two afternoons a week. Oh, hey, Paterson, my Pete, my current PhD student, but back then was just an undergraduate. She's available. Okay, so she'll come into the lab, okay, she's learning she's learning. And then slowly she comes up, and she says, Why are you doing it this way to the students? And so okay, the cells are, are not, you know, that they're not growing? Like, we thought, why did you put that, that, you know, why are you adding that? Why does it look like this? And she has all these questions, you know, and she makes the research better. And slowly, I can see her blossoming from this person who, you know, was interested, but not, didn't have any ownership into this person who's like, Okay, now, here's what we're gonna do. Okay, this didn't work this week, I have five ideas of what we're going to do in the next week. And I'll update you. And just, she has set the tone of my lab.

And so she started in 2019, as a PhD student 2020 hit. She was the only graduate student in my lab, she trained three undergraduate students on her own, and just has blown me away with all the things that she's capable of doing, and how, you know, like, like I mentioned, being able to talk to different groups of people, she could talk to people who are doing retinal research, and they're very focused on one cell type that line the back of the eye, but she can talk to high school students who come in and have so many different ideas and don't know what tissue engineering is, and she can break it down and make them really excited about this one layer of the back of the eye. She can talk to the biology collaborators and our medical doctors, our collaborators at the University of Utah, and she's just she's just outstanding and I, I look back and I go I did not see this coming

Elizabeth V 29:53

in, you know, when she walked in that summer, and I thought, okay, you know, this is fine. It's open lab group. That's I have no secrets. You know, but I don't know where this is gonna go. And I look at her now and I, my research lab would not exist if it wasn't for Chase. So that's one of those success stories. And then I think other ones come.

You know, I have another student and her name is Morgan Bishop. And she came to me and she was, I think, a junior. And she had been in multiple research labs on campus. So she, she had this sense of like, I know, I want to do a research, I'm interested in it. But she hadn't found the right fit. And because it was a little older in terms of just her experience, and her, you know, how far she had been in the degree, I kind of let her do, I kind of let her set her own path. And so she had done some research and nutrition. And she had done some research in imaging, and I have a spectroscopy system. And so I said, you know, use your skills and your she had already had these collaborators. And so he was able to get the samples, and she did all this research to see if there was a way to detect kind of like, markers or precancerous, you know, in the sample. And then she did so well, she again, she won all these awards, she won awards at the university level for pizza, you know, for the best undergraduate researcher. And then, you know, she was kind of tapped out. And so now what she's doing is she's like an advanced science. She's She graduated two years ago, and she's an advanced scientist at one of our pharmaceutical assay development companies in Utah. And I, you know, like, again, she, she did things that I just I did not foresee. And then when she would give me feedback, she said something like, oh, I had to do this, I was at an interview. And right before they said something like, Oh, don't forget to have your PowerPoint presentation ready. And she was like, what? So she didn't know. But at my group meetings, I make all my students do small presentations. So she said that I was really good at doing a presentation because she was like, sorry, to, sorry, Dr. Vargis, I didn't, maybe you don't know this, but sometimes I make my presentations right before group meeting. And I was like, I know. She said that in her interview, that she was so good at just being able to put together like 10 slides, and then to be able to talk about it. So yeah, she was an excellent undergraduate researcher. And maybe she's not doing any of that specific research science stuff right now. But she had these skills from, you know, doing her creating her own project, relying on her old collaborators, talking to me and developing new skills, putting together these presentations that have directly led to her success in industry. And so you know, to me, I know you don't like the word success, and to me, I feel bad because I want Morgan bishop to still be in my research group. I hate when these students leave. But I know that she's been she's still, she's, she's still she is a success in what she's doing now. And I will definitely take the credit for her ability to develop really awesome PowerPoint presentations on the fly, because of what she was able to do in my lab. And, you know, so it's just some of it is some of the sometimes these students come in, and they're, I don't know what's gonna happen. Sometimes they're highly qualified, and I hate to see them go. But I think that when I look back, you know, success can be measured in multiple ways. And I feel that like, these are just two examples of how it looks at the, at the beginning, at the middle and at the end. And it's just, you know, it's just great to look back and think about oh, yeah, that's a success, you are a success.

Venkat Raman 33:49

What what do you think I mean, these and other folks that have gone through your lab and continue to be in the lab, what are some of the main skills you think, are needed to do research? I mean, in the first case, you were blown away by just the execution and the work that she did.

What are the skills, Or what are the things that were common between maybe these two and others in your lab that make it work?

Elizabeth V 34:20 [Skills Needed for Research]

Yeah, um, so I tell all my students that I am not, I try to set them up to succeed. So I'm not trying to set them up for failure. So when there are issues, they need to talk to me. They need to talk to other students in the lab. But they need to tell me and these issues can be something like, this semester, I'm taking 18 credits and I can't do research that is a sign issue. Their undergrad undergraduate students there. Their priority is not doing research in my lab, even though my priority is to do research in my lab, but they are not. I am a aware that that is not their priority at this time, right. And so, you know, the issues that often come up are, I don't know how to do this. And now I'm just going to spend unlimited amounts of time on the internet and in papers and trying to figure that out instead of talking to people. So for me, for my research group, the biggest skill is communication. And I have multiple ways of communicating. You know, obviously, the Cup last couple years, it's always been on Zoom, but I have a meeting time set up with my students, I have these group meetings that are weekly, I have individual meetings, as with all my graduate students, and then as needed with undergraduate students, I have a Slack channel, so that if they if it's something like, maybe that's specific to the lab, they don't just need to talk to me, there's other people in the lab, you know, supply issue stuff. But really, to me, it's communication. And my, the biggest issues that I've ever had that students have been because of a lack of communication. And that could be something as simple as straightforward as Oh, like, I will say something. And it'll, it'll be like, can you do this, the student will interpret it as something that I didn't mean, and then they will end up doing something wrong or what? Something and then I'll come, they'll come back to me and be like, Yeah, this is what I did. And then I'll be like, but that's not what I meant. So it doesn't have to even be, you know, it's sometimes it's just, okay, you're saying, I'm saying this, okay, you're saying this? Nope, that's not what I mean. And so a lot of it is just my own, my own inability to communicate clearly, right. So I'm talking about something some other level, or something that I did, you know, 10 years ago, and maybe that's not current, but you know, the student may not feel comfortable speaking up to me, or, you know, disagreeing with me, but I, you know, I am at the stage where I've been disagree with so many times, and, you know, my goal is not to be right, my goal is to do good research. And so that, so to me, it's all it's communication. And that's number one.

Elizabeth V 37:16

And then the second skill is to probably be able to use the resources that are available to you. So don't do as a student, especially an undergraduate do not think that you are an island, or if you're the first one doing this, or, you know, like that, there's nobody who can help you. There are so many resources just on our campus, that can be helpful. So that includes me as the faculty member and the person whose work you're working with. It includes all the students in our in our lab, and includes the students in our whole department. Right. So some things so that's why being able to attend conferences, or, you know, presentations on campus gets you into this idea, like, Oh, you're doing the exact same thing, the exact same assays, you're looking for different stuff, but we're in this together, you're using the same equipment as me. So like, if I have an issue, because the light isn't turning on, I can ask you, and so these, these, so then the resources include the library, I can't, this paper, I really want to read, I can't access it, I gotta spend $25, no, you're going to ask the library, because they will, they will be able to get it for you. And so those are, I think the two resources, or the two skills that I found the most

Elizabeth V 38:31

needed to be able to do research. So communication, and then using the resources that you know of, or that your faculty member tells you to use, or that your students, the students that work with you recommend, you know, like my student talk to me about the these are their like, you know, forums for asking for advice on running, you know, science assays, and coming up with graphs, and there's all these like open source, you know, software out there that are now just available. And so let's take advantage of that. So those are probably the two that I would summarize it to, because like I said, I will train you to do this to in the skills that you need to do the research in my lab, I will train you to do to grow cells, and to do the assays, and to do data analysis, you don't need to come up with that on your own. That's, that would be awful. So these are the other things that you need to bring to the equation. So, you know, communicate with me when there are problems or things you want to discuss, even if it means that you know what, undergraduate research is not for me, even if it's a break up communication that's much better than, you know, just going along with it because you think you're committed to me now let's let's discuss this, and then using what you have available to you. And so some students will be like, Oh, I remember learning about that two years ago. I'm gonna pull out my textbook and then you know, here you go. You have this resource you you already learned About this, and now you're gonna be able to do the statistics on this data that you collected. Because of that one class you took four semesters ago, you know,

Venkat Raman 40:08

So the other question I have, which, you know, it's not an easy answer, just maybe you can speculate.

But you know, like, in the first example, the skill kind of was in the front. And that changed to some real interest. And then to the, you know, ultimately leading the whole effort and sort of, you said, just pretty much rocked your lab. And so what, what do you attribute? And I'm sure a lot of students come in not knowing, but they get hooked, right, in some way.

So what's it about research? Or what's it about? Is it is it a specific area? Is it a specific topic? Is it just the act of doing research? Is that the ownership? What is it? I mean, I think that is a great thing to happen. I just kind of wanted to see what you think about that.

Elizabeth V 41:06 [Why is Research Inspiring?]

Yeah, I think so I can speak for me. And I, I think for her, I think it's the ownership. Yeah. And so I think it's having this. So you know, we have, we have some grant funding. So we have these like, big questions. And the same when I was an undergraduate research, we have these big questions like, What are the if you have these hormone imbalances, How does that affect breast cancer growth? Yeah. And then for our research lab, it's, if you have the cells that are lining your retina, and they start to degrade, or, you know, they start to die off? How does that affect these diseases? And so those are the big questions.

And so I have, you know, for both myself, and as an undergraduate researcher, and for my student, we had some ways that we said, we might think about this or answer these questions. But really, it's up to my student to figure out how to how to do this.

And so when she was the third person on a project, and she started to ask a couple of questions, that and then, and then those questions led to changes in our protocol and changes in the way we thought about some of the research, I think that gave her that spark of, “Wait, I said something and they listened!”.

And then, and then we changed everything because of it, you know, so we were using basically a plastic, like a rubber gasket. And the rubber was, you know, it something was something for the rubber was making the cells die. And so we changed our method. And, you know, I think she was like, wait, I said something, I had a question. They, they think that's the problem. Now, they're changing everything about their protocol, like, I made a difference. And then that was a, that's a small thing. And then it became a bigger thing. We're like, Okay, now you run all of this, and you tell us what to do. And now it's become a whole ownership of how do I decide how do I figure out why these proteins are being secreted and expressed when they are? That's how much you have, you have to answer that question.

And so for her, it, I think it became this, it's like a, it's a direct, like a direct measure of her ownership, because she said something, we changed it. And that changed everything about what we did. And then that was reflected on the, you know, the fact that we have to have the cells living to be able to decide what's wrong with them. And so that changed everything, right. And so she was able to do that. And so I think that the effort that you put in to have, you know, I think so many of us feel like there's something, oh, there's nothing I could do, I don't have any control over this situation. And then in this small little world of our research lab, you know, when you start to do more of the work, and then you have some more of these skills, then you have this independence.

And so you are the one in control. And so I'm trusting you, I trust that you have the skills, and that you have the motivation and the commitment to do this project, and then you do it. And so I think that for her that it really was the ownership. And I don't I think that the motivation for the specific subject is also there. But I don't know that that's the most important part for her, you know, I think it's the ownership and this ability to then provide some, some small piece to the vision community. And the proteins that we're interested in are the ones that promote blood vessel formation, which is important in cancer research. So there's a lot of overlap there. And I think that that is the over lying motivation, that the individual ownership from day to day to day is what you know, gets her up in the morning and gets her you know, excited to be in the research group.

Venkat Raman 45:02

That's fascinating. You know, all I can say is that as a, as the head of that lab, you must be really excited every time you see these kind of transformations taking place. Oh, definitely.

Venkat Raman 45:21

Okay, so Elizabeth, we are starting to wind down, I thought we could close on the note of where do you see your lab research and undergraduate research? going next? I mean, what kind of things would you like to see happen, you know, within the lab and across the university?

Elizabeth V 45:43 [What’s Next?]

Yeah, um, so, I mean, we have I, in my students, Chase, and my, I have some new one new graduate students who were all undergraduate researchers, we have so many ideas, and not enough people to work on all of these.

And so, you know, our one of our main research topics is, how does, how can we manipulate the back of the eye to see how diseases occur. And so I talked about some of the membrane thicknesses I talked about just the cells dying. But for me, I would like to figure out when different proteins are expressed, and if we can develop treatments to make sure only the right ones are expressed at the right time.

So when these proteins are expressed, it leads to more cell death, it leads to blood vessels invading the back of your eye, which obviously can, you know, make vision, a whole whole problem. And so I really want to figure out some of the timeline of this, because we just do an assay at the end, and we go see, these five are elevated. But when does that happen? Or does one come first? And so really figuring out what, you know, what comes first? Or who's, who's who, who starts this process? Who ends this process? Who's the worst of it all, you know? And if there's a way that we can then treat somebody who might be predisposed to these types of disease, or if we see any sort of cell death, do we put them on a regimen, you know, a treatment plan where we try to stop these three, because those are the three that happened first. So that's, you know, that's, that's just one part.

But then the other parts are that I'm looking at other tissue types and looking at the muscle, and looking at some of the effects of cytomegalovirus, which affects hearing in in children, you know, how does that affect and that's it, that's a strong collaboration that I have with the colleague, Dave Britton, my department and other medical doctors at the University of Utah. And so just making doing more in the tissue engineering world, where I really tried to understand and the effects of these strange, you know, different different changes to the environment, or changes to the cells that then lead to disease. So that's, you know, my overall goal, and we've been working on the retina so much, we also have these other expertise and these other interests in the muscle and different tissues.

Elizabeth V 48:11

And then in terms of undergraduate research, you know, I, I, I, you know, it changed my life. And I just, I love that aspect of my role as a faculty member at Utah State. And so I have a small grant from Utah State Center for intersectional gender studies and research to look at how we can leverage our expertise in undergraduate research within community colleges.

So I'm basing some of this on, There's the University of California has a really strong program. I think it's the transfer to excellence program where they have a summer research, summer undergraduate research opportunity for community college students come up to Berkeley or UCLA, and do undergraduate research. And this program is only for community college students, and then hopefully, they would then transfer to one of the UC systems.

And so I'm trying to pilot a, you know, a smaller program than that. But we have a, we, you know, I think Utah State does really well for our own undergraduate students, but that transfer students come in and they don't necessarily have a community. And so then if we could use undergraduate research to build this community for them, so it might be equal parts, like a recruitment tool to bring them to Utah State, also want it to be a retention tool, where they have, you know, to be dropped into a lab right away.

And so then you immediately have this community of people who are working on the same research topics. And then you know, like, I know what my students talk about, they talk about, oh, did you take statistics from this professor? This professor? Oh, who do you ask for fluids next semester? Oh, let me give you those notes. Because, you know, I had to listen to the zoom. Do recordings, you know, so like, yeah, immediately be dropped into that, I think would be very helpful. And so we don't have a lot of transfer students.

So again, like I've mentioned, it could be recruitment and retention. But that is kind of where I, I would like to kind of, you know, work not just on my own research in my own lab for my own students, but provide more for my department and my college and then maybe even ultimately, the university is to have some a small program where we bring, you know, 10 to 20 students, maybe in the summer, maybe before they transfer in, they do an undergraduate research program.

And then they continue in that lab for a year, we provide some funding in terms of both, both for the student, but also for the lab itself to, you know, have some supplies. And then again, make sure that they're part of this community now. So they're not just this person who just showed up in their junior year, there now, they have more people than they would have known otherwise. So that's kind of where I see both my research and some of this, you know, diversity, equity and inclusion, aspects of my role at at Utah State.

Venkat Raman 51:12

Well, that's, that's awesome. I mean, I had the pleasure of talking to Professor James Hewlett at Finger Lakes Community College, and he's sort of the pioneer of the undergraduate research and community colleges started about 1718 years ago. And so I think he has a great model going, I'm sure you know that. And then I also talked to University of Wisconsin Whitewater. They do a lot of stuff with for years, as well as sort of the community college undergraduate research. So I think it's a great effort. And I think community college in general, I think, you know, there's a lot of a lot of talent and research and opportunity. Absolutely. Yeah, definitely. Fantastic. So Elizabeth, thank you so much for taking the time this truly fascinating conversation and doing great work. And I sure I want to keep in touch and talk more. Absolutely right now. We save so much, and make it work. Yep. Bye.

--------------------

Venkat 52:23

Hi again!

Hope you enjoyed our podcast with Prof Elizabeth Vargis about Undergraduate Research.

Specifically, Prof. Vargis covered:

Why UG Research is Important;
How the Vargis Lab fosters undergraduate research;
Student Success Stories;
Finally, the skills needed for research.

I hope you pursue research during your undergraduate years and explore USU for your undergraduate studies.

For your questions or comments on this podcast, please email podcast at almamatters.io [podcast@almamatters.io].

Thank you all so much for listening to our podcast today.

Transcripts for this podcast and previous podcasts are on almamatters.io forward slash podcasts [almamatters.io/podcasts].

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Thank you!

Summary Keywords

Podcast for High Schoolers, College Majors, US Colleges, College Podcast, Undergraduate Research Podcast, UG Research Podcast, High School Students, College-bound UG Research, undergraduate research, Utah State University, USU, Bioengineering.

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