{"408811":{"#nid":"408811","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Petit Institute Unveils New Internship Program","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIt\u2019s an old Catch-22 situation: Students at the Georgia Institute of Technology want jobs in the life science industry, but they often need experience to get the gig. So, what do they do?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cStudents ask me all the time, \u2018how do I approach life science companies, how do I get my foot in the door,\u2019\u201d says Cynthia Sundell, director of life science industry collaborations for the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, and Georgia Tech\u2019s Office of Industry Collaboration. \u201cSummer internships are a great way to open those doors.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis summer, there is a new door for students to walk through. Sundell is spearheading a student innovation internship program with two of Georgia Tech\u2019s biotech industry partners. Ten students from multiple disciplines will spend the summer working at pharmaceutical company UCB\u2019s U.S. headquarters in Smyrna, and two students from the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) will work for Boston Scientific in Maple Grove, Minnesota.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cOur students will see what the working world looks like, and get a sense of a company\u2019s unique corporate environment, which is important because all companies are different. Their cultures are different,\u201d says Sundell, who has taken a \u2018One Georgia Tech\u2019 approach to the new internship program.\u0026nbsp; Life Science companies often require diverse expertise that crosses over multiple schools and academic units at Tech.\u0026nbsp; So, the summer interns represent a wide range of disciplines. In addition to BME, other areas represented by the student interns are mechanical engineering (ME), bioinformatics, industrial \u0026amp; systems engineering (ISYE), computer science, statistics, and business administration.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe students serving internships at UCB, and their disciplines, are: Stephanie Alberts, BME, undergrad; Sophia Pan, ME, Ph.D. candidate; Hamid Hassanzadeh, Bioinformatics, Ph.D. candidate; Hang Wu, BME, Ph.D. candidate; Stephanie Zhang, BME, undergrad; Kartik Kaila, ISYE, masters candidate; Yanjun Zhu, ISYE, master\u2019s candidate; Nikhil Howlett, computer science, undergrad; Kaiyan Ding, statistics, master\u2019s candidate; Divad Miles, business administration, undergrad. Spending the summer with Boston Scientific are Katherine Neuberger, an undergrad, and Jada Selma, a Ph.D. candidate, both from BME.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThese are high quality people going into high quality internships,\u201d Sundell says. \u201cIt\u2019s great experience for them, but it\u2019s also good for the companies, because they\u2019re getting a glimpse into the future workforce. What companies want, the reason they come to Georgia Tech, are our students, which is our greatest resource.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAt both locations, students will play important roles in helping to chart each company\u2019s path going forward. Boston Scientific wants its interns to research new medical innovation opportunities. The students will research regulatory and reimbursement landscapes for different opportunities and help decide whether the technology fits with the company\u2019s strategic direction.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cBoth companies want students that are going to be creative in helping to solve some interesting problems,\u201d Sundell says.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBruce Lavin, UCB\u2019s vice president heading up the medical neurology division, sees this as an opportunity to engage with the next generation of scientists and engineers, \u201cbrilliant minds that have not yet been exposed to the pharmaceutical industry,\u201d he says. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn a sense, the students at UCB will help the company discover more about itself. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cWe want to tap into their knowledge and passion,\u201d says Lavin, who will personally mentor four of the students. \u201cWe\u2019ll present them with challenges we\u2019re facing, such as, how do we bring greater value to our partners and make a difference for our patients suffering from neurological diseases. As an organization, we\u2019re involved in dialogue with healthcare practitioners and scientific thought leaders in the area of neurology. How do we capture the experience and the value of those encounters?\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhen Lavin says \u0022capture the experience,\u0022 he imagines something like Yelp, a crowd-sourced business review and social networking website, or TripAdvisor, a site where vacationers can rate their experiences.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cHow do we come up with a way to coordinate and consolidate all the experiences that our thought leaders and healthcare providers are gaining from their interactions with us,\u201d Lavin says. \u201cHow do we identify the impact we\u2019re having as an organization? At the present time, there is no systematic way to do this. We\u2019re looking for these students to help come up with solutions.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EHe likens it to the Google approach. \u201cI call it \u2018student sourcing.\u2019 We present them with problems and let them work together on the solutions.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELavin sees his job as a mentor to ensure a meaningful experience for the interns \u2013 to make sure they are deployed in the most appropriate way, not relegated to doing tasks such as editing papers or updating files, \u201cbut truly challenged,\u201d he says.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThese students are pioneers, the first students to come into our neurology unit. We want their experience at UCB to be the most rewarding, worthwhile experience they can have over the course of a summer.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECONTACT:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Students from multiple disciplines going to work at UCB and Boston Scientific"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EStudents from multiple disciplines going to work at UCB and Boston Scientific\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Students from multiple disciplines going to work at UCB and Boston Scientific"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2015-05-29 18:45:29","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:18:25","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-05-29T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2015-05-29T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"408801":{"id":"408801","type":"image","title":"internship","body":null,"created":"1449254188","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 18:36:28","changed":"1475895134","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:52:14","alt":"internship","file":{"fid":"202203","name":"-2_1.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/-2_1_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/-2_1_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":426584,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/-2_1_0.jpg?itok=sisfop--"}}},"media_ids":["408801"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"1808","name":"graduate students"},{"id":"4044","name":"internship"},{"id":"12918","name":"undergraduate students"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}