UB students reap benefits from SUNY summer research internships

Dozens of UB students are among the more than 200 undergraduate students from SUNY schools chosen to take part in the Chancellor’s Summer Research Excellence Fund, a program that provides paid summer internships and advances SUNY’s goal of having every undergraduate complete a high-quality internship or experiential-learning opportunity before earning a SUNY degree.

The internship program focuses on expanding research opportunities for students with financial need, first-generation students and others who may face barriers to securing research experiences. Internships take place in a wide range of fields, including biology, artificial intelligence, machine learning, cybersecurity, physics, astronomy, engineering, medicine, life sciences, chemistry, computer science and clean energy. Participating campuses include SUNY's leading research and doctoral universities, including UB.

“Meaningful, hands-on research for undergraduates can transform academic ambitions and professional goals,” says Venu Govindaraju, vice president for research and economic development.

“The Chancellor's Summer Research Excellence Fund will create opportunities in quantum, microelectronics, climate and sustainability, and AI, enabling students to understand the impact of research and the ways their unique expertise and personal experiences can impact critical work across our SUNY campuses.”

The Summer Research Excellence Fund, which is supported by SUNY's Empire Innovation Program, covers all student costs for the internship, including, but not limited to, student stipends/salaries, tuition/fees, housing, meal plans, child care and transportation.

The undergraduate students participating in the Summer Research Excellence Fund come from eight different SUNY campuses. Since the initiative began with 150 students in 2023, more than 520 students have secured an internship.

The UB students taking part in the Summer Research Excellence Fund shared with UBNow their enthusiasm for the program and its high potential.

“In the research program, I have been working with my mentor, Dr. Eunhee Park, on her study focused on developing an electronic cigarette-cessation app, as well as assisting with another project that tracks e-cigarette usage using smart devices,” says Nicole Zhu, a senior in the School of Nursing studying artificial intelligence. “Under her guidance, I gained hands-on experience in transcribing, conducting interviews and analyzing qualitative data.”

Through weekly internship workshops, Zhu learned the fundamentals of research, including the differences between quantitative and qualitative data, the steps involved in a research project and how to develop a research question. She was able to establish her own research on user engagement with e-cigarette cessation apps.

“Overall, this program is valuable to my future career as a nurse because it allowed me to explore a different side of nursing that I had never considered before,” says Zhu. “I learned that nursing isn’t limited to bedside care; it also includes research, where we can explore relevant health issues and develop interventions to improve evidence-based practice in clinical settings.”

Owen Li, also a UB nursing student working with Yu-Ping Chang, associate dean for research and scholarship, says the internship program gives him a chance to personalize his research to add to his work that assisted others.

“It also is specifically nursing research, which is a rare opportunity for me and made me explore what that actually is,” says Li, who will be a sophomore this fall semester. “The structure of it being a summer program made it more accessible, as compared to the school year when I would be busy with my STEM classes.”

Piotr Shtyk is another success story. A nontraditional student pursuing a degree in biological sciences as his second bachelor’s degree, Shtyk worked under molecular/cell biologist Stephen Free.

“My research focused on a pH-signaling pathway that is present in multiple fungal species, but the scope of its function is not entirely clear yet,” Shtyk explains. “I found the work challenging, but interesting, and felt like I began developing a sense of independence with the material toward the end of the program — so much so, that I will continue to work in the Free lab during the fall semester.”

Shtyk says the program offered two valuable benefits.

“We were taught a variety of lab techniques and were able to practice them enough to become proficient — this is of obvious value,” he says. “Even more powerful, however, was the prolonged immersion into research, the ability to focus on a theme for two months and experience the pace and the fixation research requires. It was illuminating for everyone in my cohort, I am sure.

“In my case, it reaffirmed my interest in research as a career but also clarified the areas of biology I find more and less rewarding.”