Alexa Wade’s passion for research started with a strawberry. Michael Vivian’s started while watching “Star Trek” episodes with his dad. Cameron LaFayette’s began in eighth grade from the movie “Gifted Hands,” the saga of Detroit-born neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Wade, Vivian and LaFayette — now University of Alabama at Birmingham upperclassmen — pursued their research passions full time this summer as inaugural members of the UAB-Genentech Research Scholars Fellowship Program. The Genentech program awards summer research stipends to students who are first-generation college students and/or from historically underrepresented minority groups, through support from Genentech, a leading biotechnology company in San Francisco.The three UAB students recently shared their journeys as they presented research findings at the 2017 Summer Expo, where eight Genentech Research Scholars and 164 other student researchers exhibited their work.First generationVivian and LaFayette are of the first generation in their families to go to college.“My grandfather was a police officer in Miami,” Vivian said, “and my grandmother a high school secretary. My mom and dad want me to work hard and follow my dreams.”
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Source: Student Journeys: Passion for Research Began with Strawberries, “Star Trek” and “Gifted Hands”
