JULY 28, 2016
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Cristina Diaz, Media and Community Relations Manager; 215.753.3684
Philadelphia, PA — Chestnut Hill College (CHC) and Fox Chase Cancer Center (FCCC) have collaborated on an immersive undergraduate research program that allows selected CHC students the opportunity to conduct their research at one of the nation’s top biomedical and oncology centers.
According to Joe Kulkosky, Ph.D., professor of biology and chair of the department at Chestnut Hill College, the program lasts 15 months and requires students to spend an average of 10 hours a week at FCCC for immersive lab work in addition to their regular coursework. Students are also required to complete two summers of research, which is done at Fox Chase alongside some of the most highly regarded scientific names in the Philadelphia area.
One of the goals of the program is for students to publish their findings in science journals, an accomplishment which opens many doors for those looking to study at the post-graduate or doctoral level.
“This level of commitment greatly increases the opportunity for these students to publish their findings in high-profile, peer-reviewed journals,” says Kulkosky.
Several students have completed the program and have gone on to prestigious post-graduate programs including Kelsey Haugh ’14, who studies Biomedical Sciences at Yale University which is considered to have one of the best immunology biology departments in all of the country, Kelly Dunlevy ’15, who is currently a doctoral student in the Molecular Epigenetics Program at the University of Pennsylvania, and Jason Wasserman ’16, who was accepted into the highly competitive Biomedical Sciences Ph.D. Graduate Program at Temple University’s Lewis Katz School of Medicine.
“The program documents the students’ skills and their potential, in the form of publication-quality results,” says Richard Katz, Ph.D., research professor at Fox Chase and one of the primary mentors in the program. “Along the way they experience the excitement of research as, even at the introductory level, discoveries can be made. In the hands of these motivated and curious students, magic happens.”
An additional element of the partnership is an education exchange component through which Fox Chase Cancer Center graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and others will share their research and expertise with CHC science students. A benefit of this exchange is exposure of CHC undergraduate students to a large base of research scientists with varying fields of research expertise that would complement the departmental course offerings as well as give the FCCC representatives the chance to gain valuable experience in education.
“The program as a whole exposes students to the unexpected twists and turns of research and they soon learn to be persistent and resilient,” says Katz. “Seeing their scientific maturation is a rewarding experience and, as they move through the program, they add their own ideas to projects, which is quite intellectually stimulating for us all.”
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About Chestnut Hill College
Celebrating more than 90 years of tradition, Chestnut Hill College is a four-year, coed Catholic college in the Ignatian tradition that offers a traditional liberal arts undergraduate program as well as accelerated undergraduate degrees, master’s and doctoral programs. The College has been rated by US News & World Report as among the best master’s universities in the North, as among the best Northeastern colleges by The Princeton Review, and has been classified as selective by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Since 1924, the College has offered a rigorous curriculum that provides students with a broad background in the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. The goal of Chestnut Hill College has been to prepare students for life’s challenges by helping them to grow intellectually, spiritually, emotionally and socially. http://www.chc.edu/
