Dawn Kilkenny
Vice-Dean, First Year, and Associate Professor, Teaching Stream
Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering
Disciplinary Area: STEMConsiderations for Undegraduate Research: Training
As the Associate Director, Undergraduate Programs in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Professor Dawn Kilkenny helped to lead the development of the Undergraduate Summer Research Program (USRP). It started as a small cohort of biomedical engineering research students with summer research funding, coming together a few times to discuss their questions and findings. Eventually the program grew, as students explored questions about how else they could apply the research skills they had learned.
When Professor Kilkenny moved into her role as Vice-Dean First-Year in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, she was asked to expand this departmental initiative to the entire division. It was a challenge as research varies from discipline to discipline. As Professor Kilkenny considered how to approach creating this division-wide program, she thought about the experiences of students. While many students gain research exposure through courses, few have the opportunity to actively participate in a dedicated research space for months at a time. What supports would help students successfully navigate their summer research projects?
In answering this question, Professor Kilkenny designed a program to support students’ summer research projects along with helping them to develop professional skills to translate research skills and be successful long-term. Topics now include lab health and safety, effective literature reviews, writing a scientific abstract, best practices in lab communications and ways to share research findings. Along with bringing in faculty colleagues to explore these topics with students, Professor Kilkenny has also hired a graduate research assistant to help facilitate discussions with students.
Connecting students has been a key component of USRP. Allowing students to chat with each other about what they’re doing, what they’ve been learning and questions they continue to have about research, helps to build their confidence in their research directions and skills. It also helps students to establish a research community that’s rooted in their work and interests. Students learn to share and receive critical feedback about their work without the connected pressures of grades. As Professor Kilkenny notes, students feel like they’re supporting one another, and you can see the professional and personal bonds that they’re creating with each other over research.
As the capstone for USRP, Professor Kilkenny collaborates with Undergraduate Engineering Research Day(UnERD), an annual one-day conference where USRP students and other engineering students have the opportunity to gather and present their research to an audience of faculty, industry professional and student colleagues. Through end-of-experience participation in this opportunity, students continue to consider how to create approachable visual and oral presentations and talk through critical feedback about their research.