In addition to opportunities during the academic year, the Iowa Sciences Academy (ISA) offers an 8-week summer program that provides students with professional development opportunities and funding for up to full-time mentored laboratory research. The summer program includes weekly ISA student development seminars, a poster practice session, and culminates with poster presentations at the Summer Undergraduate Research Conference (SURC). This year, the cohort consisted of 25 students.

*ISA Summer Program Cohort

The summer program covered a variety of topics in its weekly seminars. These included information about Careers in STEM, an Alumni Panel, Research Ethics, Training & Funding Opportunities, and more. The Alumni Panel gave the summer students the opportunity to hear from ISA alumni and find out what they're doing now, where they are, and to ask them questions. The funding topic broadened awareness of the many financial/funding resources students could consider pursuing.

Twenty of the ISA Summer Participants presented their research posters at the Summer Undergraduate Research Conference. Lily Schaefer took first place with her presentation of Effects of Salt and Pathway Inhibitors on Trachea Epithelial Cell Differentiation. Second place went to Lee Flores, researching Automated Behavioral Training for Teacher-Student Interactions: Leveraging Large Language Models to Dynamically Generate Assessment and Feedback. The third place winner was Natalie Kehrli, with research in Tracking Physical Activity in Severe Mental Illness: Insights From Pedometry-Based Studies. Tied for honorable mention fourth place were Bhoomika Shettigar, with her research on Relations Between Green Space Access and Children's Cognitive Performance, and Adriana Castellano, who presented Putting Snails to Sleep for Science: Refining Anesthesia Techniques for Regeneration Research. After the SURC presentations, the ISA hosted a Summer Reception with over 35 people in attendance, including our summer students, mentors and advisory ISA board members and staff, and parents of the students. Learn more about all our students' research here!

Following SURC, the Iowa Sciences Academy hosted a final Reception to congratulate our students on all their hard work and wrap up the summer. 

*Lori Adams and Lee Flores

*Lori Adams and Lily Schaefer