For many students, winning scholarships, fellowships, and award money means the difference between continuing their college studies or leaving school to earn an income. Without exception, the financial help students receive is met with gratitude and relief. “COVID-19 has placed my family in a very bad financial position. Winning this scholarship means that I can pay a part of my tuition fees and so less stress for me and my family.” Shifat Hossain (’23) told me when I asked her what winning the Danny Brower Scholarship meant to her.
Hossain is a triple major in Chemistry, Bioinformatics, and Molecular and Cellular Biology. Balancing courses and research are challenging already, but 2020 added additional challenges; “Because of COVID-19, all my classes were online this year. However, since I am a Global Ambassador, I had the chance to meet and help international students. International Student service arranges a trip to Lee for international students biweekly. I got to have very interesting conversations with international students about different cultures during these trips.”
Hossain was chosen as a Global Ambassador because of her life experiences and coming to the United States to attend university. “My parents moved around to different countries to provide me and my brother with a better life. I spent most of my life in Oman as an immigrant.” Growing up in Oman, there were not many scientific research opportunities. However, even as a young student, Hossain was fascinated by the exciting research topics in her science courses. “Ever since I remember, our house in Oman was always filled with students. My parents, besides being teachers. also tutored students at home. I used to take complete advantage of the situation and hang out with students of different grades while helping my mom with mundane tasks. This piqued my curiosity in science at an early age. “
As soon as she started college at the University of Arizona, she took the very first chance she got and started working in a research laboratory. She joined an internship at Translational Genomics research institute in the summer of 2020. “These experiences have allowed me to explore the breadth of the exciting undergraduate research opportunities available. During this time, the cutting-edge publications in biophysics caught my attention, and I came across Dr. Michael Brown’s laboratory. Their research on the role of soft matter involving membrane lipids and water on the activation of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR) immediately piqued my interest, not only due to the fascinating and transformative science but also due to the energetic and creative academic environment in the laboratory.” She secured a position in Dr. Brown’s laboratory and continues to work in his lab. “It is no doubt that I have learnt a lot of cool sciencey stuff at Dr. Brown's lab, but more importantly I have learnt a lot from the helpful, friendly and caring nature of the lab members. It is helping me not to just grow scientific knowledge but also grow as a human being. Dr Brown's lab is more like a creative academic environment than an industrial workplace.”
From her research and tutoring experience at the Strategies Alterative Learning Techniques (SALT) https://salt.arizona.edu/ center, Hossain realized that she is particularly motivated towards the academic side of science, involving both teaching and research. Her plan is to continue her research passion, conduct research in chemistry and biophysics, and to contribute to the education and mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics areas as well as being a professor.
While keeping up with studies and her research leaves little leisure time, when she does have a few hours, Hossain paints. “I love art and painting. I once added studio Art as a minor but later dropped it as my love for Bioinformatics outweighed that!”
Congratulations Erika and Shifat, on winning this year’s Danny Brower Scholarships!