Education and Exploration:
Undergraduate Research at Rice

Marie Ng
Bioengineering Major

Georgia native Marie Ng came to Rice in part because she wanted to keep warm. “I knew I wanted to stay in the South and enjoy a warm climate,” she explains. But Rice had a few other characteristics that drew her to its campus as well. For one, Marie knew that “Rice is a school that offers strong, renowned programs across all disciplines—from the Shepherd School of Music to the School of Architecture to its engineering departments. I felt comfortable knowing that although I might not have been absolutely certain of what I wanted to study when I entered Rice, I would feel confident about choosing to study any major that Rice offered.”

Marie also knew that she wanted to conduct research. She had already gotten a taste of the research bug while in high school. In the summer of 1999, she attended the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program, where she worked with two other students to design and implement a research project over a six-week period. They studied how the bacteria Vibrio anguillarum can recover by photoreactivation after being irradiated with UV light.

It was important to Marie that she have the opportunity to supplement her classroom education with hands-on, practical experience in the lab. She explains, “I was especially interested to find out what type of research goes on in the relatively new and cutting-edge field of bioengineering. I was able to join the lab at Rice through the invitation of my divisional adviser at Wiess College, Professor Jennifer West.”

During fall semester of her sophomore year, Marie worked under the guidance of a fourth-year bioengineering graduate student in Professor West’s lab. She conducted various experiments to examine the physical properties of certain acrylamide gels that contained silicon gold nanoshells or citrate gold colloid. “Throughout the semester,” Marie says, “I became very familiar with the procedure for making polymer solutions and photopolymerization. I acquired notebook-recording skills, and I learned basic lab techniques. At the end of my research period, I wrote a 14-page paper titled ‘Hydrogel and Microfluidics Study,’ which covered my work in Professor West’s lab, and I gave a corresponding oral and PowerPoint presentation to peer researchers and Rice bioengineering professors.

“As an undergraduate student who came into the lab without any research experience beyond basic laboratory classes, I feel very fortunate to have been able to take part in research in the lab. Beyond learning research techniques and methods, I gained invaluable knowledge from talking to the graduate students about their lab experiences, their previous education, and their career goals. I was completely immersed and welcomed into the lab family—from the lab group meetings to lab dinners at Professor West’s home to working side by side with the grad students.”

Marie says that her undergraduate research experience has been so rewarding that she definitely plans to continue. “My experience in the lab was very positive and encouraging, and I hope to find more research opportunities like it in the future.”