“Student organizations were super active here pre-COVID, but when COVID started, things began to fizzle,” says Dylan Brown, a fifth-year chemical engineering student in the Lucks Lab.
Even after the pandemic, student participation in Center for Synthetic Biology’s activities and programs was down. CSB co-director Julius Lucks turned to Brown to help brainstorm new ideas to increase student engagement.
“Trainee perspectives are vital to creating a sense of community within CSB, allowing us to focus activities on what is most important to them,” says Lucks. “It is also a wonderful opportunity to work closely with CSB faculty and staff and gain leadership skills beyond their scientific training.”
Heeding the call, Brown and three other graduate students, Maram Naji, Geoffrey Bonnanzio and Gauri Bora—all working in CSB-affiliated labs—started the Center for Synthetic Biology Trainee Association (CTA) in 2024 after a year of planning and discussion to foster deeper connections between graduate students, postdocs, faculty and administrators. The group’s key priorities were to build community, support student research and help to plan current and future center events.
Last year, the fledgling CTA formed a small leadership board and recruited representatives from other CSB labs to help communicate events and activities to their lab mates. Leveraging this new approach, the group organized the CSB Open House to introduce new graduate students to the many research opportunities available in CSB labs.
“The Open House targeted first-year students who don’t have labs yet to come look at the interdisciplinary research that’s done in CSB and maybe find a place, regardless of the department they are from,” says Brown.
The CTA recruited graduate students from various labs to participate in poster sessions and field questions.
“People don’t realize that synthetic biology spans multiple departments,” says Bora, a fifth-year chemical engineering student in the Lenard Lab. “Having an event where first-years can come and see all the labs within the Center for Synthetic Biology, not just in their department, made them aware of how big the center is. More than 75 first-year students and trainees showed up to talk about the research, eat food and hang out.”
In addition to implementing CSB’s Open House, the CTA increased participation in CSB’s Research in Progress discussions. The monthly gatherings offer students, regardless of where they are in their degree programs, as well as postdocs, direct feedback from their peers.
“We created a very casual environment to practice your presentation skills, particularly if you plan on going to conferences this upcoming year or in the future,” says Brown. “If someone’s struggling with a method in their research, this is a good place to get a different point of view than what you might from your PI. There’s a lot of technical expertise in the room.”
In the future, the group is looking to expand and offer more professional development to create a broader recruiting pipeline. They also harbor ambitious plans for outreach to the wider Chicago and Evanston communities.
“Our ultimate goal would be to set up a mini-exhibit in the Field Museum or Museum of Science and Industry,” says Bora. “However, we’d also enjoy just spending some Saturdays hanging out at a booth explaining why synthetic biology is so cool.”
by Lisa La Vallee