DR. MINICOZZI'S LAB

After the completion of the RISEbio program, I decided to transition to a lab that worked more closely with a species I wanted to work with as a career, fish. This led me to working with Dr. Michael Minicozzi for the last 2 and a half years of my undergraduate studies. During this time, I worked on a project on my own evaluating what aspect is causing the different jump characteristics in the tail-flip jump between two different strains of zebrafish. During the first year on this project, I looked at how different morphology in fins, such as fin length, ray structure, etc., affect the jump distance between the two different strains. To do this, I had each fish perform a tail-flip jump and then euthanized the fish in order to clear and double stain the bones and cartilage. After finding that there were no differences in overall jump distance and the tail morphology of the species, we had to figure out what aspect could be causing the strains to behave similarly. We decided to study if muscle composition variations were causing these similarities. Further, by studying muscle composition, we were able to determine if time until exhaustion would be similar between the strains or if one would exhaust sooner than the other. To do this, each fish perform a tail-flip jump, then had to jump for three minutes in a wading pool, and finally jumped in the wading pool until they had reached exhaustion. Once this was completed, the fish were euthanized and embedded in wax in order to make histology slides to determine the proportion of red and white muscle tissue. For all the data points I tested, I used a t-test to determine if the two strains of fish were different from one another. Additionally, I used correlation models for some characteristics as well as a principal component analysis to determine how all characteristics work together to create the functional niche for the strain. After collecting the data and exploring the results, I presented my work at several different conferences including the URS in 2021 and 2022 as well as at the SICB conference in 2022. Through the URS, I gained a lot of feedback in how to make my presentation style better and learned how to answer questions. This prepared me to present my work at SICB. Because I had previous experience presenting my work, I feel that I was able to present my poster well at this conference. While at SICB, I received comments on my research that would increase the reliability of the data. Thus, I was able to apply these critiques and am on the path to publishing my work in a scientific journal.

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By being involved in Dr. Minicozzi’s lab for so long, I got to experience a lot of the different processes that go into developing a research project. In my first year, I learn the most about conducting the research, analyzing the data, and then presenting our results. In my second year, I really got to learn more about how to use previous data to form a new question and how to make a protocol in which you can test the new question. Through this, I learned that it is a long process to form your question and methods completely. I also learned how important it is to have a solid question and a solid methodology on how to answer your question. In addition, I learned a lot about writing grants and submitting abstracts. I had the opportunity to write a grant in the fall of 2020 and the fall of 2021. By writing these grants, I learned the importance of being able to explain your project and why it is important for you to be able to conduct it. If you are not able to explain the goals, outcomes, and implications of the research, it is going to be hard to find someone who is going to give you the money/resources that you are asking for. As for submitting abstracts, I learned a lot about how to condense my research and results in a way that gets the information across in the short word limit that you have for an abstract. With this, I also learned about the struggles of submitting work to a journal. When going through this process, you are going to get a lot of critiques and edits. I learned that I have to remember that these edits are given in order to make it the best paper possible. It was sometimes frustrating to see so many edits on a submission that I thought was good, but I had to remember that I was not a pro and that I should take the advice of others to put the best paper out there that I could. One mistake that I made while conducting research was doing most of my data analysis wrong the first time that I was learning how to use the software. I was pretty upset at myself for not taking good enough notes when I was walking though how to do it with Dr. Minicozzi and I was upset that I spent a lot of time doing the data analysis just to have to start over again. From this, I learned a few things. First, I learned that even if you are confident that you are doing something right, it is best to check your first piece of work with someone that has done it before. If I would have done this, I could have avoided the situation and just had to redo one data point rather than all of them. Additionally, I learned that it is okay to make mistakes when doing research. As a perfectionist, I was embarrassed when I found out about this error. Even though I felt this way, Dr. Minicozzi was so supportive and calm about the situation and walked me through a second example. This showed me that when mistakes happen, you just have to get up and do it again and learn from the previous mistake that you made. This is an important lesson for me to learn because I will make mistakes multiple times when I am in the research fields. Some of the mistakes will be avoidable, and others will be inevitable. Because I have learned that it is okay to make mistakes and to just try again, I will be able to let the mistake haunt me less and just move on. Working on these two projects helped me understand how to conduct research in my field and what is involved in doing research. I also was able to learn a lot about the different morphology of fishes and how different functions can be, or cannot be, based on differences in their characteristics.

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While having this experience, I learned a lot about the whole process of research from start to finish. I will use these skills as I move forward in my education to earn my M.S and Ph.D. Specifically, I will use the skills of developing a research project and overcoming the challenges and obstacles that I face while pursuing the project. Additionally, I will be able to build upon the presentation and writing skills that I have gained through this lab. In the future, I plan on pursing my Ph.D. with Dr. Devaleena Pradhan and Idaho State University. In her lab, I will continue doing research on the biomechanics of fish swimming. However, instead of focusing on the locomotion of fish out of water, I will be studying the movement of fish in the water. I will be looking at how, or if, sex changing species exhibit different swimming behaviors and relating it back to differences in the endocrine pathways between the two sexes. As I have found my passion for research, I am excited to see what this new project will bring in experience and excited to see what other questions will arise while doing the work.