SCORE opens doors to professional development, research to underrepresented communities

Freshman Dante James pours some Celsius into a vial during her lab as her associate professor, Nadia Singh, watches her progress. She’s examining how energy drink consumption affects the microbiomes of fruit flies as part of her research for Students of Color Opportunities and Research Enrichment, otherwise known as SCORE. SCORE is a one year program for students who identify as part of an underrepresented community to introduce them to research opportunities.

“Basically it emcompasses training and basic lab procedures, how to read a lab manual and things like that so that way students of color can gain more experience because, oftentimes, there isn’t that much opportunity for students of color,” James said. “There’s a disparity of students of color to join research so this tries to reduce this gap by teaching us and giving us a little head start.”

SCORE was started several years ago by a graduate student as a club but is now taught as a one credit course by associate professor Dr. Singh, from the biology department.

“I think any infrastructure that we can provide to diversify the workforce, especially the scientific workforce, is really important,” Dr. Singh said. “Every step of the way there are barriers and we need different kinds of interventions at every step to make sure we are not losing our women and people of color.”

When SCORE began, they only had two members, but the program has now grown to 13 students. Because of their rising numbers, they had members from last year’s cohort return to peer mentor this year’s cohort, including sophomore Audrey Saing.

“I think for me, I’ve always had a passion for learning but over the years I’ve realized that I want to apply my learning beyond the classroom,” Saing said. “I’ve always really valued scientific research and it’s really nice to be able to contribute to the research community so that future students are able to expand upon that knowledge and help create changes in the world.”

SCORE still follows the same model from when it was started; in the fall term students learn professional development, they conduct research projects during winter term and analyze and present the data at the Undergraduate Research Symposium during the spring term. However, Dr. Singh believes the most important thing students gain from the program is self-efficacy.

“Students routinely say they come into the class not sure they could be a scientist and leave knowing they can,” Dr. Singh said. “It’s not really about lab skills or reading a paper, it’s about developing agency and a sense of identity and connecting with themselves as a scientist.”

John Francis, who graduated from the CHC in spring of 2021 and is now at Case Western University pursuing his MD, also agrees that one of the most beneficial skills he got from SCORE is the interpersonal skills.

“I think that [SCORE helped me] by giving me a technical skill set and providing me with the softer skills that people don’t talk about, like etiquette while working in a lab, etiquette while working in academia, it has really benefited me now,” Francis said.

James also thinks that this class has increased her confidence in the lab and given her a community support system.

“I think people are very hesitant to be open about what they like,” James said. “Once you realize that people are there to help you and people to talk and hear about your interests, it makes it so much easier to connect you into a lab. Also, just making friends is great.”

Along with the support system they gained, both James and Saing spoke about how important of a mentor Dr. Singh is to them.

“Nadia Singh, she’s really inspirational,” Saing said. “She’s shared her own story, her own research background, her undergraduate experience and the ups and downs of that, and how she’s accomplished so much in terms of research and advocating for students of color. It helped me settle my own worries about research.”

Going forward, Dr. Singh said she would love to see the program continue to expand.

“There is a huge wealth of data indicating that exposure to research early bolsters perseverance in some disciplines and this is particularly true for students of underrepresented groups,” Dr. Singh said. “Between the community and the research exposure, my hope is that we can increase the persistence in STEM for students from underrepresented groups.”