From Curiosity to Care: Students Showcase Research with an Eye on Their Futures

Students, faculty, and staff came together for the biggest Research Conference yet on the Boston campus.

Natural disasters. Artificial intelligence. GLP-1s. The seventh annual Student Research Conference at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS) featured nearly 200 student presentations addressing a range of healthcare topics.

Organized by the Center for Research and Discovery, this year’s conference was themed “Curiosity to Care: Building Pathways into Healthcare Careers.” It followed other events that gave students at the University opportunities to present their work, including the second annual Research and Scholarship Day in Manchester in November and a similar event in Worcester that took place during the same weekend as the Boston conference.

In a speech to open the conference, Dr. Keri Griffin, Dean of the Center for Research and Discovery, congratulated students on their work and elaborated on the theme.

“You were drawn to the sciences, to healthcare, to the humanities, to the arts, because something inside of you needed to understand how the world works, how the body works, how people suffer, and how your expertise and knowledge can contribute to solving some of those challenges,” Dr. Griffin said. “That curiosity is not only incidental to becoming a healthcare professional — it is the very foundation of it.”

From Drug Therapies to Global Health

Students across disciplines and academic levels received support from the University through faculty mentorship and Center for Research and Discovery initiatives like the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship and Mini Grants. These students, as well as Honors Program students in the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Pharmacy in Boston, were given the opportunity to deliver oral presentations in breakout rooms for evaluation.

Devendra Patil, PhD ‘27, worked with a team of other graduate students to study the results of clinical trials for GLP-1 agonists such as Ozempic.

“I’m working as an intern for an academic consulting firm that is researching GLP-1s, and I’m also studying them for my PhD,” he said. “So, this is what I’m focused on all around.”

Amna Mae Aboushhiwa, BS ‘26, a premedical health studies major, chose a topic close to her heart.

“I’m from Libya, and I looked at how the floods that happened in 2023 affected the country’s public health infrastructure,” she said.

For her project, “Rising Waters, Rising Risks: Climate Change, Flooding and Cholera in Libya,” Aboushhiwa used a One Health approach, a method of analysis recommended by the World Health Organization that considers human, environmental, and animal health as interconnected, to examine impacts on mental health outcomes and disease.

“I go there every summer, so it’s really personal to me,” she said.

Exploring Timely Topics

Rachel Schneider, Director of the Writing Center, served as one of the faculty evaluators for student projects. She noticed many students had chosen topical subjects to research.

“I found the AI presentations particularly interesting,” she said. “It's good to see that students are interrogating the strengths and the limitations of those tools.”

Julian Marrero, BS ‘28, was doing just that when conducting his research into ChatGPT. As part of a group of students taking an informatics class, he tested the large language model’s accuracy in citing books and academic articles when answering questions about medical drugs. Interestingly, his group found that ChatGPT cited fewer books overall but was more correct when citing them than when citing articles. “If you want a definitive conclusion, ChatGPT is much better for finding books than it is for reading them,” he said.

A Group Effort

The conference required extensive planning by students, faculty, and staff. Arianna Grant, BS ‘27, did double duty as both a research presenter and a member of the Student Advisory Board for the Center for Research and Discovery.

“Presenting our research gives us a leg up in national conferences. We get to have that experience of dealing with evaluators and talking to advisors, practicing professional language along the way,” she said.

Emma Borkosky, BS ‘27, President of the Student Advisory Board, said she was grateful to take part in the collaborative process of planning the conference.

“What's really special about this year’s conference is the theme,” she said. “We’re inspiring our students to persevere and be passionate about their education and their research, and to continue to build their careers.”

Opportunities to Innovate

The keynote speech was delivered by Dr. Yannis M. Paulus, the Jonas Friedenwald Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins Medicine. A graduate of Harvard University and Stanford University School of Medicine, Dr. Paulus spoke about his career and therapeutics he developed for patients with vision disorders. He shared close-up videos and photographs of his work operating on retinas, which drew gasps from the student audience.

“Good thing we’re not near lunch,” he joked.

During the Q&A portion, he answered questions about research funding, lessons he’d learned, and the current eye care landscape.

“Life can take you in many unexpected directions. Be flexible and willing to take risks as you start your career,” he advised.