Top 20 moments/experiences of my PhD

Since I don’t have enough writing to do (i.e. dissertation, papers, etc), I figured I’d write about the top 20 moments/experiences of my graduate school career. Cover art is a picture I took of the USC School of Pharmacy building in June of 2015, the first day I got to campus.

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Starting research 3 months early

Before I graduated from undergrad, I was already negotiating a summer start with each of the graduate schools I was admitted into. That summer was tough, not just because I was moving 1200 miles away from my family and friends (my brother and I drove my stuff to LA, from Kansas), but because experiments in the lab I chose to work in weren’t working. That rotation wasn’t the best fit, but I definitely learned a lot, and I met best of all, I met Albert, who has helped me get through the worst of PhD lyfe.

First photo I ever took of the USC School of Pharmacy

The 2016 Fellowship writing boot-camp

My first real foray into writing. It was held on the University Park Campus (I work on the Health Sciences Campus 45 minutes away) for a week in August 2016. It actually got off to a rough start, as my first writing group didn’t have much feedback for me but took my extensive feedback personally. I’ll admit, I misjudged their openness to constructive criticism. The other two groups were great though, and it was a fun experience. Best of all, its where I first met my girlfriend (I asked her out after biostats lol)! She’s doing research on homelessness and water access!

Getting support from the graduate school and the School of Pharmacy to top-off our R01 diversity supplement

As an undergrad, I enjoyed teaching gen. chem lab classes, but early on during my PhD I realized that I did not want to TA. In my first year, I swore that I would get a grant/fellowship to support my stipend, so that I could devote all my time to research and get the best possible training/mentorship. My Ford foundation, Soros foundation, and NSF GRFP applications were all rejected, but in April of 2017, I earned the first award of my graduate career: a research fellowship from the American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education (AFPE). Around the same time, my PI and I resubmitted an R01 diversity supplement, which ended up funded in July of 2017. This grant was supposed to supplement my PI’s R01 so that I could get additional training/mentorship opportunities that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. However, the stipend provided by the USC School of Pharmacy is among the highest in the nation, and so the funds from the R01 diversity supplement didn’t cover my stipend entirely (they were at least $12K short). Even if we used entire AFPE award, I’d be making several thousand dollars less than every other student in my program, which seemed crazy. The school was willing to make up the difference in my stipend ONLY if the AFPE fellowship funds were applied to my stipend, which I understood. However, it still felt like getting not one, but two grants/fellowships put me back at square one, so I reached out to the USC graduate school directly and discussed the issue with them. In the end, that graduate school came through, and agreed to “top-off” my stipend between the R01 diversity supplement and the USC school of pharmacy, so that the AFPE fellowship could be used solely to support my research.

Building a bunch of electrophysiology rigs, learning new molecular techniques and reorganizing the lab

Research is never easy, but my project started out particularly tough, since the lab’s molecular biologist retired, and I was the only PhD student doing ephys. I was always curious about all the equipment in lab, even if it was broken or not in use. This curiosity led me to try to fix one of the broke ephys rigs, then I took the lead on optimizing our lab’s Roboocyte 2 TEVC system, then I built another ephys rig, then I digitized our microscopes, then I digitized the chart recorders. At the same time, I was also expanding our molecular biology toolbox. I also completely reorganized the lab, which was super fun!

Organizing a conference (right before my qualifying exam)

In 2016, I joined the student chapter of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS-USC) as communications chair, and in 2017, I was the President! Every time I look back, I can’t believe I helped organize an all-day research conference, a few weeks before I was scheduled to take my qualifying exam (to advance to a PhD candidate)! I couldn’t have done it without my amazing board of directors and friends.

AAPS-USC 2016

Visits to alcohol research centers in South Carolina, Chicago, and San Diego

Most graduate students don’t get the chance to visit other universities/institutes to network and learn about the research going on, which is why my visits to MUSC, UIC, and the Scripps Research Institute are some of my favorite experiences during my PhD.

Presenting at the 2019 Experimental Biology conference and at the NIH almost simultaneously

This was the craziest weeks ever for so many reasons. For one, the undergraduate students I mentor in lab were preparing for their undergraduate research symposium at USC, so in addition to making two completely different posters to present at the 2019 Experimental Biology (EB) conference and at the NIH campus for an NIAAA/NIDA event, I had to help my undergrads with their poster. I got my NIH poster done early, but the EB and undergrad posters would be done on Friday. Not a huge deal, but I had to be at the Conference on Thursday for some special mentoring events. My PI agreed to bring my EB poster with him on Saturday, when he planned to fly out to EB, so no big deal. Then on Saturday morning I get a text from my PI asking if I included oocyte experiments on the EB poster (I didn’t), which put me in full panic mode as I realized he had been given the undergraduate symposium poster. He was at the airport and past the TSA checkpoint, with 1 hour to board his flight. I immediately called one of my undergraduate students, Brandon, asking if he could somehow drive to campus, pick up the correct EB poster from another student, and swap posters with my PI at LAX. Amazingly and with no time to spare, Brandon and my PI pulled this off, and I was able to present at EB 2019. In fact, myposter won 3rd place in the Dolores C. Shokley Graduate student poster competition and was a blue-ribbon pick by the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental therapeutics (ASPET) committee. The same night I presented at EB 2019 in Orlando, I hopped on a redeye flight to Maryland so that I could take part in an NIH event for diverse scholars. My undergraduate students would end up winning an award for the project during their research symposium as well!

Mentoring over a dozen high school and undergraduate students

The title says it all. It’s really fun teaching students electrophysiology, molecular biology, biochemistry, etc. I had some great research mentors when I undergraduate, so being able to give back and teach the next generation of scientists is really rewarding. Plus, its cool to see how students develop into researchers: in the beginning, they’re impaling oocytes too deeply (and killing them) or trying to use a P10 micropipette to dispense 900 milliliters,  but by the end, all they have to do is ask me what we’re doing in lab and then they get right to work. In the summer of 2019, I was actually mentoring 9 students at the same time (undergraduate and high school) which sounds insane, but ended up being an amazing experience.

Getting a Regulatory Science Masters degree and taking MBA classes during my PhD

Like I said, it took a minute for my project to get off the ground, so to take my mind off of the constant failures, I decided to pursue a pursue a Regulatory Science (Reg Sci) Masters degree in the Management of Drug Development from the USC School of Pharmacy. I also took a bunch of classes from the Marshall School of Business at USC. Reg sci classes were on the weekends from 9am to 5pm, and taking MBA classes meant 1 hour shuttle rides the University Park Campus at 6pm(UPC; I work on the Health Sciences Campus, or HSC) but it was worth it. Plus Reg Sci had awesome catered lunches and speakers from the pharmaceutical industry, how could you say no to that????

**Allegedly** Staying in lab when the fire alarm went off and everyone evacuated the building

**allegedly** I had finally gotten an ephys experiment to work and I wasn’t going to give up because of a [possible] false alarm. **allegedly**

Not allegedly: it was a false alarm.

Lots of social events

Between events put on by the graduate student government (GSG), the pharmacy graduate alliance (PGA), the School of Pharmacy, Keck School of Medicine, and other organizations at USC, I’ve definitely left lab early a few times.

The hip-hop wall of fame in PSC400

Artists/albums/lyrics that helped me get through grad school, including but not limited to: Jay-Z, The Game, Tupac Shakur, J. Cole, Joe Budden, Run DMC, N.W.A., etc. I haven’t taken pictures of the wall recently, but tis expanded quite a bit since the pictures below.

The Inspire award (2018 USC Pharmacy Alumni Awards Gala) and the Order of Arete (2020)

In 2018 I was recognized for my leadership and community involvement at the 2018 USC School of Pharmacy Alumni awards Gala, and as part of 2020 graduating class, I was recently inducted into the Order of Aretes for these same qualities. The order of arete is the highest honor bestowed upon graduate students at USC.

Many many conferences

I’ve presented at the Society for Neuroscience conference since 2017, the Research Society for Alcoholism conference since 2018, and the Experimental Biology conference since 2019. In LA, I’ve presented at Graduate Student Government research symposium (USC), the SoCal Biomedical sciences graduate student research symposium (Cedar-Sinai), and the 2019 Moving Targets symposium. In May of this year, I was supposed to present at the Alcoholism and Stress conference in Volterra, Italy, but unfortunately COVID19 has stopped all scientific conferences.

Research sabbatical at UIC College of Medicine

Like I mentioned earlier, the AFPE predoctoral fellowship and the R01 diversity supplement I earned provided funding to enhance my research training, and one of the most amazing opportunities was traveling to Dr. Mark Brodie’s lab at the University of Illinois, Chicago to learn how to perform extracellular electrophysiology recordings. Not only did I learn a lot of neuroscience, but I learned a lot about myself. I also got to chance to live with my family in Chicago during this time, which was great. Last but not least, I got to see Jay-Z and Beyoncé with my girlfriend during the OTR-II tour!

Showing my parents and little brother what I do in lab

When my family came to visit LA during Christmas 2018, I invited them to lab to learn and see what it was I actually did in lab. In fact, they helped me resuspend cloning primers, and my mom even corrected me when I accidentally cross-contaminated a primer mix (don’t worry, the stocks were fine, and in my defense, it was >100 microtubes.)

Starting this blog

I can’t stress this enough: my PhD project sucked in the beginning. Since then, I’ve learned a lot and wanted to share what I’ve learned about electrophysiology, molecular biology, grad school, and science with anyone who might need help. A few people have even reached out and thanked me for some of my posts! That’s one of the best feelings in the world as a scientist: others utilizing your work.

3-peat: AFPE predoctoral fellowship renewals

In 2017, I received a predoctoral fellowship from the American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education (AFPE) which helped support my travel to Dr. Mark Brodie’s lab at UIC. In 2018 and in 2019, my project was renewed. Its hard to describe how much the fellowship has helped me during grad school. Not only did it support my work at UIC, it has supported my travel to conferences and has paid for equipment/reagents (even this website) we couldn’t otherwise pay for. My PhD experience has been unique in that if I want/need something for lab, we buy it, without worrying too much about funding.

Wilson the oocyte/postdoc

I like to take pictures of the frog eggs (oocytes) we work with and put emoji eyes them; I think it’s really funny. I took this a step further and printed out emoji eyes and put them on the stuffed oocyte we use to teach/describe ephys to students, and that’s how Dr. Wilson, PhD was born! His name comes from the movie Cast Away, where Robinson Crusoe’s only friend while stranded on a desert island is a beach ball. Humor is definitely a coping mechanism of mine.

All the support I’ve received along the way

My PhD could not have been possible without support from so many people. From my committee members Liana Asatryan, Daryl Davies, Curtis Okamoto, Michael Jakowec, and Bangyan Stiles, to the graduate affairs office: Rosie Soltero, Wade Thompson Harper (sorry for all the trouble I cause when registering), Annie Wong-Beringer, and Liz Aguiniga. Special shoutout to all of the custodial staff at the School of Pharmacy as well; they were always so nice and asked how I was doing. They’re also probably the only reason I can still speak Spanish. Thanks to Joanne Lee, Bich Jones, Hebron Cheung, and Sean Chu for helping process all the orders/reimbursements during my PhD. Seriously, I found so many inexpensive replacements for lab on Amazon. Thanks to Owen and Alberto from FMS for helping me borrow tools/equipment to repair/build stuff. Shoutout to Juana Prieto for always looking out for our packages and deliveries! She has saved countless oocytes and enzymes! John Woodward and Mark Brodie for your unwavering support and for teaching me so much! Lynn Morin for helping me navigate the NIH grant submission process, and Sharon Wallace for helping us submit our grants! Shoutout to all of my friends and family for always supporting me! My research sabbatical literally could not have been possible without mi Tio Bernabe, mi Tio Gabriel and mi Tia Silvia, and my cousin Freddy. I wouldn’t have even been able to start research early if my Tia Soccoro hadn’t let me stay with her.