# Events and Actvities ## **Annual Events** ## *Meet the DRB Recruitment Event and Fall Welcome* Late Summer Given the diversity of investigators that pursue research in the fields of developmental and regenerative biology, graduate students pursuing thesis research in these fields have few opportunities to interact. Incoming students, who may be interested in pursuing opportunities in these fields, need opportunities to meet a broad array of the faculty in these areas and network early on in their training, when broad exposure is crucial for their assimilation into research culture and for selection of a thesis laboratory. To meet this need, DRB hosts an annual recruitment and fall welcome event to provide an opportunity for interested, incoming students to network with and learn about ongoing research from program faculty and current students. *“Meet the DRB”* coincides with the conclusion of the orientation of new students at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and their introduction to Dudley Hall in late August on the Cambridge campus. In addition to recruitment, the event serves as a fall mini-symposium by allowing current students and faculty to share their latest research developments. In 2017, faculty and senior graduate students presented 3-minute “lightning” presentations providing “big-picture” overviews of research areas/projects, followed by a reception and student-faculty poster session. There were over forty attendees at the event, many of whom were first year students in the BBS umbrella program. ### *New Year’s Gathering/Dinner* Winter DRB is dedicated to providing opportunities for student and faculty to network. To encourage this, the DRB directors instituted an annual New Year’s social to bring the community together. In this format, student and faculty can interact in a relaxed atmosphere, whether the topics focus on professional development, emerging frontiers in research, or simply how to enhance the collaborative atmosphere of DRB. Often, great new ideas take shape at our social events that will guide DRB programming into new directions and experiments to improve the program. ### *Annual Developmental and Regenerative Biology Retreat and Symposium* *Spring* The DRB Community prides itself in being a student-centric community and providing our students with hands-on opportunities to lead. These are core principles at the heart of our Annual Retreat and Symposium, which are largely organized and directed by our team of student leaders from booking to planning to selection of the faculty speakers. This event energizes and unifies the development and regeneration communities. Based upon participant feedback, the format of the retreat has evolved in time from a more conventional keynote-speaker centric speaker session to its current format in 2017. Students and faculty begin the half-day retreat with a student-selected mentoring lunch. Scientific sessions of the retreat then begin with complimentary student and guest faculty talks in two sessions. Between speaking sessions, students are challenged to present their ideas to this diverse research community through non-traditional, “chalk-talk” style presentations in which they create impromptu, hand-drawn posters as viewers inquire. Featured talks in the past three retreats have included “Stem Cells in Youth, Aging and Cancer,” Elaine Fuchs (Professor of Rockefeller University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute), “Adult axolotls can regenerate complex neuronal diversity and local circuit in response to brain injury,” Ryoji Amamoto (Arlotta Laboratory, Harvard Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology Department, Harvard University), “The cellular and molecular basis for regeneration in planarians,” Peter Reddien (Professor, Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology), “Developmental origins of disease: Insights from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder,” Olivia Weeks (DRB Graduate Student, Biological and Biomedical Sciences PhD Program and Goessling Laboratory, Brigham and Women’s Hospital), “Establishment of Oocyte Polarity in Vertebrates,” Mary C. Mullins (Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania), and “Restriction of apoptosis in Drosophila neural stem cells,” Kate Harding (DRB Graduate Student, Biological and Biomedical Sciences PhD Program, White Laboratory, Massachusetts General Hospital). ## **Ongoing Events** ## Student-Faculty Seminars and Journal Club DRB continues to bring together the cross-campus development and regeneration research communities to foster collaboration and omnidisciplinary student development throughout the academic year through recurring events, including our student-faculty “Works-in-Progress” data club seminar and journal club series. ### Student-Faculty Seminars Public presentation and the ability to present findings and research developments to varied audiences are crucial skills to success as a scientist. The monthly DRB student-faculty seminar series, which moves from campus to campus, provides a monthly opportunity for graduate students to present results of their work to faculty and peers. Half the seminar is devoted to a selected student talk while the second half is paired with a complimentary faculty speaker either from the program or the Boston Metro Area community. This provides students opportunities for peer and informal faculty critique, opportunities to brainstorm ideas for exciting new directions to be taken in their research, practice giving presentations, and opportunities to prepare presentations for upcoming professional meetings and conferences. The faculty talk provides students opportunities to engage nearby faculty about their research and networking opportunities in a relaxed environment. The event always concludes with a social to foster informal mentoring between students and faculty and provide time for peer-to-peer mentoring. ### Student-Journal Clubs Our DRB student-led journal clubs were a recent program innovation developed and implemented by several of our junior leaders. Students solicit relevant and interesting papers from all members of the community and select the series of readings for each meeting. The meeting happens in an informal setting and is generally comprised of both junior and senior graduate students. This experience fosters development of essential leadership skills in our junior students, provides a relaxed atmosphere for junior students to brainstorm and consider ideas presented in literature, and fosters an environment in which they can learn essential skills to critique and carefully analyze the literature from their more senior peers. Journal clubs occur on a monthly basis and alternate on the month with our student-faculty data club series. ## **Mentoring and Networking Opportunities** ### DRB Faculty Mentoring Circles A program of faculty mentoring circles was established based upon student feedback, indicating a desire for new opportunities for candid mentoring conversations with faculty. To unify campuses and overcome the barrier of faculty availability, we solicited student feedback to select faculty and faculty feedback to select the best time of day and location, either the faculty member’s office or a nearby conference room. Students from across years in school enjoyed the opportunity to speak in small groups with faculty and have their questions and concerns addressed. Often, they were surprised to learn that the challenges in their science and graduate school experiences were universal. Participating faculty members included Prof. Clifford Tabin (Chair of the Department of Genetics, HMS), Prof. David Van Vactor (Director of DRB and Professor of Cell Biology, HMS), and Prof. Paola Arlotta (Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University). ### DRB – Biogen Career Infocourse series Students in DRB consistently tell us that they desired field-specific opportunities to learn about career options in biotechnology and industrial biomedical research and development. To meet this need, we launched a series of fall and spring infocourses with our industry partners and program alumni at Cambridge-based Biogen. Our fall workshop, held at Harvard Medical School, introduced our students and post-docs to life at Biogen, provided an opportunity for attendees to ask questions to a diverse panel of industry scientists, and concluded with one-on-one c.v. review sessions. Based upon participant feedback, we tailored our spring session to an open Q&A session focused on the translation of bench skills to industry and vice versa. Both versions of the course were highly successful with positive feedback from participants and sessions at or exceeding event capacity.