Faculty inspire Howard grads to pursue Ph.D. at UC San Diego

Last summer, Daril Brown and Nailah Seale arrived on UC San Diegos campus for the first time as visiting undergraduates from Howard University. They spent eight weeks immersed in bioengineering research alongside UC San Diego faculty and graduate students, while learning strategies for applying to graduate school.

Now, both Brown and Seale will return to the La Jolla campus in the fall to pursue their doctoral degrees, thanks in part to the mentorship they received that summer. In addition, each has been awarded a prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support their studies.

Brown and Seale were among eight undergraduates who participated in the first cohort of the UC San Diego Howard Partnership for Graduate Student Success, a summer research experience designed to prepare students to pursue doctoral degrees, particularly in the fields of science and engineering. The program is supported through the University of California-Historically Black Colleges and Universities (UC-HBCU) Initiative. UC-HBCU seeks to improve the representation of African Americans in UC graduate programs by investing in partnerships between UC faculty and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

Brown has had his sights set on bioengineering since middle school. His grandfather was a paraplegic, a fact he says helped spark his interest in how the brain works. Brown participated in a variety of research experiences throughout his undergraduate career, but it was at UC San Diego that he found his research match.

I was like a kid in a candy factory, said Brown. Ive always been interested in brain/machine interfaces, and getting to work with a professor who specializes in that research was awesome. I called my parents everyday telling them how much I loved it.

Brown spent the summer working in the lab of bioengineering professor Todd Coleman, who specializes in bioelectronics, machine learning, information theory and neuroscience. He worked alongside graduate students and got a feel for what doing research and being a doctoral student at UC San Diego would be like.

Todd Coleman is an awesome mentor, said Brown. He would take us to lunch and check in with us on how the program was going, how we were doing both professionally and personally. That mentoring relationship continued when Brown returned to Howard. He was the main reason I decided on San Diego. I wanted to work in his lab.

In addition to research, the summer program included Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) preparatory classes and strategies for completing admissions applications and the NSF fellowship application.

Like Brown, Seale knew early on that she wanted to pursue graduate studies in bioengineering. As a high school senior with an affinity for biology, chemistry and math, Seale stumbled across a Forbes article about bioengineering that inspired her to learn more about the field. While at Howard, she spent her summers doing research internships at different institutions, experiences that solidified her goal of achieving a Ph.D. At UC San Diego, Seale found the program that matched her ambitions.

I really liked the atmosphere and most importantly the research, she said. It was a place where I could envision myself.

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Faculty inspire Howard grads to pursue Ph.D. at UC San Diego