CHS Student Selected for American Physiological Society SURF Award
Published April 16, 2023
By Darlene Muguiro
UTEP College of Health Sciences
Irene John Tomy, a junior Clinical Laboratory Sciences (CLS) major, has been selected to receive a prestigious American Physiological Society (APS) Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF). Historically, the APS has awarded between 10 and 12 students nationally each year.
John Tomy, an undergraduate research assistant in the UTEP MiNER Laboratory, will receive SURF funding to support her continued research activities this summer under the guidance of Dr. Sudip Bajpeyi, lab director. The fellowship also provides funding to travel to the next APS conference, where she will be invited to submit an abstract and present her summer research accomplishments.
John Tomy’s CLS background has become a highly valued asset in the MiNER Laboratory’s interdisciplinary setting. Despite the distinct differences in their academic backgrounds, the team works very well together and, John Tomy says, has since she first joined last August. She recalls being drawn to the laboratory by a project focusing on insulin resistance, led by lab mate and doctoral student Joshua Labadah.
“After investigating different labs and projects, I found a project within the MiNER Lab focusing on insulin resistance. I have family members with diabetes and a history of metabolic conditions, so I found the work very interesting on a personal level,” she said. “I decided to speak to Dr. Bajpeyi about joining the lab to reinforce what I am learning and to become a more well-rounded student.”
Bajpeyi says he is thrilled about John Tomy’s successes in the short time she has been in the laboratory, noting that her SURF Award comes on the heels of a third-place award in the Undergraduate Student Poster category at the Texas ACSM conference held this past February. He also credits lab member and doctoral student Jehu Apaflo with providing ongoing mentorship that has instilled professionalism and dedication to research.
“Irene is an intelligent, humble, hardworking student. I have been pleased with her professionalism, dedication, and success at this early stage of working in my lab,” he said. “Alongside her successes, I must emphasize Jehu’s contributions in mentoring her behind the scenes, helping to enhance her research skills and professional qualities on a daily basis.”
To prepare her for work in the laboratory, Apaflo guided John Tomy through an intense onboarding process that included safety and instrument use protocols. He quickly learned that her preference was clinical testing, and she has since taken over that side of the team’s work. She says that she is now seeing firsthand what she has been learning in her CLS classes this past semester.
“When I first started in the MiNER Lab, I was very new to the tests that were being done and had no clue what was going on,” she said. “But now, I’m just really enjoying the work, and maybe it’s because I’m working with people on a daily basis, and I’m able to see the study participants’ progression, and if they are getting better.”
During her seven months in the lab, John Tomy’s work has been a significant part of the development of her lab mates’ dissertation and thesis projects. Apaflo, in particular, is thankful for her contributions to his dissertation.
“Everyone in the lab has been impressed by her performance, including Dr. Bajpeyi – he has even given her some smaller projects of her own, and she will be focusing on those for her APS fellowship,” he said. “Her project is an arm of my own project, so her work investigating a new area in metabolism research, will be very important. Additionally, the APS conference is very prestigious, so we are looking forward to that.”
The weight of receiving a nationally competitive fellowship is not lost on John Tomy, who says that her initial reaction was disbelief. She also credits Apaflo, who closely guided her while she wrote the proposal for the summer research project.
“When I applied, I really didn’t have any expectations of winning. But I thought, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do the best I can on the application,” she said. “I felt really happy when I found out, and the first thing I wanted to do was let Jehu know because he was in the room when I received the email.”
John Tomy says that she’s keeping her mind open about her future involvement in research, and she is investigating her options for continuing her education after she graduates from the Clinical Laboratory Science Program. She encourages other undergraduate students who are interested in research to take advantage of the opportunities when they present themselves.
“I was initially scared about doing research; it seems like such an intimidating field,” she said. “But if you find a lab that’s doing work that you are interested in and enjoy, you will be able to pick things up and want to continue being there, learning. Even if you’re not going into a research career, you learn a lot of important skills that will help you in your future.”
###
Go Miners!
For more information about the MiNER Laboratory, please visit: https://utep.edu/chs/kinesiology/minerlab/. Contact Dr. Sudip Bajpeyi at sbajpeyi@utep.edu for more information about joining the lab as a student researcher.
