The Creation of a Pedagogical Tool to Further Understanding on Orthologs and Paralogs

Anam Ali

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Hark

What is the broader impact of your summer research? That is, why should the world care about your work?

Terms in evolutionary biology such as homology, orthologs, and paralogs can sometimes be difficult for students at an introductory level to understand and there aren’t many resources available to walk students through differentiating them while learning how to use bioinformatics tools. This work aimed to facilitate students’ understanding of these terms common to evolutionary biology via the creation of a tool to be used in classroom settings. In addition to this, it centered around using various bioinformatics tools to develop those skills for future use.

What has summer research taught you about yourself and the field that you researched and/or studied

I’ve come out of this experience feeling a lot more comfortable with writing, though I still struggle with that on some level in any setting. I also think that working independently taught me a lot about keeping myself accountable with goals that I’ve set for myself.This summer has taught me about the various considerations that are necessary when dealing with something that has the potential to be used in a classroom setting. As an LA, I was used to developing questions to be used in a very specific class setting, but when trying to make something that’s adaptable to many classrooms, there were a lot of other considerations. 

What advice would you give to students considering a future research opportunity similar to the one you participated in?

All students should have the opportunity to work on something fairly independently. It really makes a difference in developing that self-accountability for the goals that you set out to accomplish.