Donate Now

Communities in Schools

Bioinformatics Camp

The Details

Program Goal
Bioinformatics Summer camp aims to inspire, educate, and empower students by providing them with unique and enriching experiences in the realms of bioinformatics. The program was at no cost to selected students ensuring that financial constraints do not limit participation.

Participant Break Down At A Glance

21 young women completed camp with
5/5 attended sessions

  • 33% will be first generation college students
  • 52% qualify for Free and Reduced Lunch (FARL)

Student Schedule: 1 week online/hybrid program

  • Day 1-4:
    • 6 hours each day
    • 24 total hours of programming
  • Day 5:
    • Showcase Day!

Student Journey:

  • Learned the basics of drug development and programming
  • Worked on project using session knowledge
  • Mentored by professionals and peers in every session

Student Journey:

  • Periodic STEM Webinars
  • Bi-Annual Surveys
  • Help with college portfolio
  • Inspire to take a STEM Major

Detailed Participant Breakdown

27% of participants qualify for Free and Reduced Lunch (FARL)

Program Schedule Overview

Mentors

Amrita Pati

Senior Director, Clinical Biomarkers & Diagnostics

Daniel Ellwanger

Principal Scientist (Bioinformatics Technologies)

Bharath Ramachandran

Director, R&D Information Systems at Amgen

Ruchir Sharma

Specialist Software Engineer

Shivani Gupta

Senior Associate Scientist

Ittai Eres

Senior Scientist

Vivienne Watson

Scientific Director

Carolyn Ch'ng

Senior Manager Information Systems

John Wright

Engineer at Amgen

Jamie Rosner

Technical Product Manager & Principal IS Business Systems Analyst

Krishna Senthilkumar

Pranav Senthilkumar

Paul Kim

Aditya Sundaram

Andrew Williams

Rishabh Poikayil

Sessions Included:

Journey of Drug Development

What technologists/Engineers do at Amgen

Basics of Programming

Biomarkers and Precision Medicine

Next Generation Sequencing Pipelines and Automation

Students in Action

Team 1

  • Kyle Wan
  • Jeslyn Rai
  • Soniya Kamatkar
  • Madeline Rhyasen
  • Aarna Singh

Team 2

  • Joshua Sin
  • Lucas Sin
  • Mía D Bazan
  • Likhita Chall

Team 3

  • Arrun Mila Rashidi
  • Mann Aggarwal
  • Ira Deokule
  • Rizakpreet Shingari
  • Jake Truong
  • Ayesha Ghuman

Team 4

  • Audra Kinser
  • Aarzu Singh
  • Sara Mohtaj Khorassani
  • Youwei Zhang
  • Hiya Yadav
  • Sharada Kittur

Team 5

  • Siya Patel
  • Aryan Bhagia
  • Luka A Bazan
  • Molly Hubbert
  • Halima

Team 6

  • Japneet Kaur
  • Iris Singh
  • Swarna
  • Vinaitheerthan
  • Galle Lipshitz
  • Eva Rhyasen

Team 7

  • Jasneet Kaur
  • Trina Ta
  • Ian Flores
  • Ellen Li
  • Ella Rhyasen
  • Jesa Robis
Outcomes

Students worked together to create a research project from start to finish

Students presented their projects to a panel of professional judges

More than $800 distributed to participants in rewards and incentives

Students leave camp with a finished project, ready to be showcased on a school or job application

Certificates and winners declared and full class graduation

Students leave camp with a finished project, ready to be showcased on a school or job application

Program Impact

Technical Skills

Basics of Programming

Datasets

RStudio and R

Soft Skills

Teamwork and collaboration

Decision making

Time management

Communication

Strategic Skills

Innovative thinking

Implementing functions and programs to find interesting results in their data

Survey Results
0 %
reported that they were very likely to pursue an academic or career path in STEM
0 %
of students reported their understanding and level of confidence with bioinformatics concepts significantly by participating in this camp
0 %
of students reported their understanding and level of confidence with programming significantly by participating in this camp
0 %
of students reported that they would recommend this camp to their friends
0 %
of students reported that they would be interested in future SSF camps covering different set of STEM topics
Feedback
This program showed me opportunities of bioinformatics. its inspired to me to apply in that major during college and sparked my interest in the field.
 
Siya
Participant
One of the things I found most interesting was how long the process of drug development actually takes and I learned more about what the process entails. I found the lecture to be intriguing and informative.
 
Japneet
Participant
I enjoyed learning how to code in R, learning about a software engineer’s role in biotech, and learning the application of technology and systems and how important it really is to creating better treatments/finding information
 
Iris
Participant
The coding sessions were so interactive! The presentations by the mentors and peers were so engaging. Us working in groups and interacting with others, also the conference made it amazing ✨
 
Hiya
Participant