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

  • 100 applications
  • 56 female, 41 Male, 3 Non-binary/ Other
  • 37 final participants completed the program
  • Between 9th -12th grade
 

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

Beyond Summer

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

Detailed Participant Breakdown

Racial Identity
Participants
Other
1
Asian or Pacific Islander
24
Decline to Answer
3
Hispanic or Latino
3
Multiracial or Biracial
3
White or Caucasian
4
Grand Total
37
Age
Participants
14
5
15
7
16
13
17
9
18+
3
Grand Total
37
Home City
# of participants
Belmont
2
Fremont
13
Hayward
2
Menlo park
1
Newark
1
Redwood City
1
Richmond
1
San Francisco
4
San Jose
6
Stanford
1
Sunnyvale
2
Tiburon
1
Union city
1
Vallejo
1
Grand Total
37
27% of participants qualify for Free and Reduced Lunch (FARL)

Program Schedule Overview

Mentors

Professional 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

Shooting Stars Peer Mentors

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
  • Srishti Pathak
  • 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 showcase learnings
Students presented their presentations to judges and competed for first, second and third place
All final participants received gift card rewards
Students leave camp with bioinformatics introductory knowledge that can be showcased in a college application or job interview
certificate_31
Certificates award to all final participants
All students reported a dramatic increase in their understanding of general bioinformatics and data science

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

reported that they were very likely to pursue an academic or career path in STEM
50 %
of students reported their understanding and level of confidence with bioinformatics concepts significantly by participating in this camp
50 %
of students reported their understanding and level of confidence with programming significantly by participating in this camp
50 %
of students reported that they would recommend this camp to their friends
50 %
of students reported that they would be interested in future SSF camps covering different set of STEM topics
50 %

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