Creating stepping stones for students and mentors alike

If there were a single word to describe the Science Research Initiative (SRI), “mutualistic” would rank among the best choices. Most are aware that the program uniquely allows undergraduate students to build a strong undergraduate resume, connect with expertise in the field, and ultimately learn if the career path is right for them far earlier and easier than what tradition entails. But did you know a similar benefit exists for the mentors? 

SRI mentors are able to build a resume of their own as they teach and foster their students’ growth, showing proof-positive results that they can help students thrive under their leadership. That’s useful in its own right, but they also get to “home-grow” a roster of assistants with tailor-made expertise to assist with their projects. These are assistants that then use that expertise as groundwork for projects of their own. It’s a system that benefits everyone involved

Kendra Autumn is a prime example.

Kendra arrived at the U with a BA in Biology from Willamette University in tow and quickly became involved with SRI as a graduate student stream leader. Under the guidance of her PhD advisor Bryn Dentinger, she developed a research focus on how parasitic fungi adapt to their hosts and how they might adapt to switch to a new host. The study of parasitic relationships can lead to deeper understandings of the evolution and mechanism of parasitism and often leads to practical applications. 

“Say you’re trying to grow a crop plant and a pathogenic fungus attacks that plant,” Kendra explains, “you can get a different fungus that is a parasite of the crop-attacking fungus to deal with the issue, which is a potential pesticide-free approach to mitigating fungal crop pathogens.” She is currently studying the DNA of several mushroom specimens and their mold parasites, building evolutionary trees to better understand how these parasites have adapted to counter their hosts' defensive measures.

This sort of adaptive specialization is a potential goldmine of breakthroughs as parasitism is all around us. Its utilization could affect everything from medicine to waste reduction. But as these parasitic studies built momentum, so, in tandem, did the new SRI with its signature mutualism. Now in its fifth year, the program for undergraduates is perfectly poised to place a handful of undergraduates under Kendra’s leadership, allowing them to adapt and grow together, often in ways you might not expect. 

Kendra explains that “Many streams are able to create a lab culture, where fresh SRI students will go on to become learning assistants or TA’s in their stream to help mentor new students. There’s an actual sense of community. It’s something [where] I’m looking around and asking, ‘How do I develop this more in my stream?’” It becomes not just a project that students are invested in, but an environment, a place, where they feel comfortable enough to plant a few roots and start growing in turn. 

Even SRI's infancy, the benefits to both students and mentors, like Kendra, have been astounding. Now with her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology awarded last spring, she gets to lead her upcoming students as a fully fledged SRI Fellow, to ask more ambitious questions and find new ways to expand student’s horizons as the program continues to evolve. 

Kendra Autumn  has big plans, ranging from introducing genomic studies in an accessible way, to creating and involving her students with outreach programs to build their science communication skills. And all the while they will be helping her lift her own projects towards new heights. It truly is a mutualistic relationship, as the years continue to pass it's no longer a question of if SRI will benefit students. Instead, it’s a question of what kind of extraordinary new heights both mentor and students together will be able to reach.