Page 35 - Gates-AnnualReport-2016

2016 was another year in which the Gates Center worked hard to inspire and train the next generation of scientists and clinicians.
Summer 2016 marked the second successful year of the Gates Center Summer Internship Program (GSIP). The GSIP directors Drs. Neil Box, Tamara Terzian and Enrique Torchia, and coordinator Charlie Wall, recruited 19 college undergraduates from across the country competitively chosen for the program. The directors also established partnerships with Middlebury College and Alfaisal University in Saudi Arabia, from which we had four affiliated students. Two undergraduates from Berea College in Kentucky also shadowed the program.
Each of the interns was assigned to a mentor’s lab for the 11-week program and attended a Gates Center orientation, a tour of the Gates Biomanufacturing Facility and weekly lectures from various researchers and clinicians including Gates Advisory Board members Marilyn Coors, Ph.D., and Wag Schorr, M.D. The program culminated on the afternoon of Friday, August 12, with award-winning CBS medical broadcaster Dr. Max Gomez as guest speaker, a poster session showing the interns’ work and a reception for family, friends, donors and campus attendees.
Follow-up surveys showed that we are meeting our goal of encouraging outstanding undergraduates to consider careers in biomedical research. We were also pleased to hear that 100 percent of this year’s mentors would like to take another intern in summer 2017, and 100 percent would recommend the program to others. Thanks to Jeff Siebert of Banana Bones Media, we have a video describing and commemorating the 2017 program. See: https://vimeo.com/ bananabones/review/181954533/a052b8c0fc.
By fall 2016, the program had received additional funding that enabled the dedicated program directors to institute several changes to improve the program overall. Having done a survey of other similar programs in an effort to attract the most competitive group of students, we decided to increase the summer stipend from $3,000 to $3,500.
Thanks to a lovely gift from Rhondda and Peter Grant in December 2014, we inaugurated the Gates Summer Internship Program (GSIP) in the summer of 2015. Gifts received during the 2016 calendar year enabled the Gates Center to host 18 college undergraduates in the GSIP and subsequently to plan for an expanded summer 2017 program.
Specifically, we received generous gifts from Rhondda and Peter Grant, Monty and Frank Kugeler, the Walter S. Rosenberry, III, Trust, Penny Lewis
(in honor of her grandson and 2016 GSIP alumnus Drew Dyson) and others. This additional funding allowed the program directors to also address the only suggestion from 2016 program participants for improving the program by way of providing outside- of-work activities and housing opportunities.
Additionally, we were able to enhance the program’s mission by offering two fully funded summer training positions that include lodging, transport and food to highly qualified undergraduates from rural Colorado who are in financial need.
Rhondda and Peter Grant helped the Gates Center launch its Gates Summer Internship Program (GSIP) in the summer of 2015.
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