Pre-Med: Explore the Medical Field

Medicine is a long-term commitment that requires many years of training. Given this, many students find it difficult to decide whether medicine is the right career path for them. Through this one-week long program, students will gain insight into what it is like to be a physician. Students will have an opportunity to engage directly with physicians who are passionate about their work. Simultaneously, students will get to explore the state of the art UConn Health Center which is entering an era of unprecedented growth in all three areas of its mission: academics, research, and clinical care.

In addition, students will have an opportunity to gain guidance from UConn's Pre-Med academic advising staff. Moreover, students will be provided supervised transportation from the UConn Storrs campus to the UConn Health Center in Farmington. Students will return to the Storrs campus at the end of each academic day.

The UConn Pre-College Summer Pre-Med: Explore the Medical Field course will be taught by various doctors, professionals, and consultants from UConn Health. UConn Health is a vibrant, integrated academic medical center that is entering an era of unprecedented growth in all three areas of its mission: academics, research, and clinical care. A commitment to human health and well-being has been of utmost importance to UConn Health since the founding of the University of Connecticut Schools of Medicine and Dental Medicine in 1961. Based on a strong foundation of groundbreaking research, first-rate education, and quality clinical care, we have expanded our medical missions over the decades. In just over 50 years, UConn Health has evolved to encompass more research endeavors, to provide more ways to access our superior care, and to innovate both practical medicine and our methods of educating the practitioners of tomorrow.

Lead Faculty for Session 1 & 5:

Shobhana Pathani, M.D

Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine

Dr. Shobhana Pathani is a hospitalist physician at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. She completed her training in Internal Medicine at the University of Massachusetts. She has a deep passion for teaching as well as mentoring residents and medical students which she explores through her work as a faculty member at the University of Connecticut. In addition, she plays an active role in the success of an annual university summer program centered around providing high school students with exposure to a career in medicine.

Lead Faculty for Session 2

Jin W. Kim, M.D.

Assistant Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine

Dr. Jin Kim is a hospitalist and Assistant Professor of Medicine at UConn Health and the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He also serves as Medical Director of Nocturnists, being a part of the medical staff since the inception of the nocturnist program at John Dempsey Hospital, where he plays an active role in the development of the night rotation teaching curriculum.

He received his undergraduate degree at Tufts University and his medical degree at the University of Connecticut. He then completed his Internal Medicine residency at Baystate Medical Center/Tufts University School of Medicine, serving as Associate Chief Resident in his final year, before moving back to Connecticut to take on his current hospitalist/nocturnist role. He has an ongoing enthusiasm for his role in teaching and supporting medical residents, medical students, and pre-med students, finding each stage of training to be vital in career direction and professional development.

Lead Faculty for Session 3

Momina Salman, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine

Dr. Momina Salman is a hospitalist physician at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. She completed her residency from university of connecticut in 2006 in internal medicine. She was a hospitalist at St francis hospital, hartford ,from 2006 to 2008. Since 2008, she has been a hospitalist at university of Connecticut health center. She has two publications. She has taught medical students and residents in training for more than 15 years. She also has a very diverse and interesting. past, She completed her medical school in Pakistan and also has work experience in Pakistan as well. She strongly believes that high school is a good time to learn about the field of medicine. She has been involved in the summer program since its inception and has played a key role in developing it. She enjoys working with students and helping them in making this difficult decision.

Agnest S. Kim, M.D., Ph. D.

Associate Professor of Medicine
Director, Non-invasive Cardiac Imaging and Echocardiography Lab
Director, Cardio-Oncology Program

Dr. Kim provides care to patients with a wide range of cardiovascular illnesses, including coronary artery disease, valvular heart disease, and cardiomyopathy. She has expertise in advanced non-invasive cardiac imaging, including echocardiography, nuclear cardiology, cardiac MRI, and vascular ultrasounds. She has a particular interest in the cardiac care of cancer patients.

Dr. Kim received her bachelor’s degree at Yale College. She received her medical degree from Vanderbilt University. She completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at Yale-New Haven Hospital. After residency, she completed a fellowship in cardiovascular diseases at Yale-New Haven Hospital, during which she also obtained a Ph.D. in investigative medicine.

Debapriya Datta, MD, FCCP

Professor of Medicine
Director, Critical Care Clerkship, UConn SOM
Associate Program Director, UConn Pulmonary-Critical Care Fellowship Program
Director, PFT laboratory, CPET Program & PERT Program, UConn Health

Dr Datta is a pulmonary, sleep medicine and critical care medicine physician at UConn Health. She has completed her medical training including residency and fellowship at UConn Health Center. She treats patients with a wide variety of pulmonary disorders as well as patients with critical illnesses admitted to the ICU. Her clinical interests include dyspnea evaluation, exercise physiology, pulmonary embolism and ventilator weaning and ICU outcomes.

She is actively involved in teaching medical students at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine during their clinical rotations in the ICU, hospital floors, and outpatient clinics. She also works closely with trainees- medicine residents and pulmonary–critical care medicine fellows. She is passionate about medical education and has won several teaching awards. She is also involved in medical outcome research and has numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals and presentations at national and international scientific meetings to her credit.

George Y. Wu, M.D., Ph.D.

Emeritus Professor of Medicine, Chief of the Hepatology Section, and Herman Lopata Chair in Hepatitis Research

University of Connecticut Health Center.

He graduated with a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Rochester, and received an M.D. and Ph.D. (biochemistry) from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He trained in internal medicine at Harlem Hospital, Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, and received subspecialty training in digestive diseases at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He has been a pioneer in the field of targeted delivery of biological substances specifically to liver cells, hepatocytes. He developed the concept of targeted rescue, targeted gene delivery, an immunocompetent model for HCV infection, and most recently targeted delivery of mitochondria. He has received numerous awards and prizes including the American Liver Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship Award, and an American Gastroenterological Association/Industry Research Scholar Award, American Liver Foundation Research Prize, American Gastroenterological Association-Gastroenterology Research Group Young Scientist Award, and a Chinese American Medical Society Scientific Award, was elected a Fellow of the American Gastroenterological Association, and the American Association for the Study of liver Diseases. He was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the Association of American Physicians, and was a Fulbright Specialist. He has received 10 patents, and founded two startup companies to commercialize inventions. He has published more than 210 peer-reviewed articles, and edited 12 books. He is the comprehensive editor-in-chief of the Journal of Clinical and Translational Hepatology, and series editor for the Clinical Gastroenterology series published by Humana/Springer Press.

Jennifer P. Kanaan, M.D.
Associate Professor of Medicine
Director of critical care point of care ultrasound

Site Director, Pulmonary/Critical Care Fellowship

Dr. Kanaan received her bachelor's degree in biology at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA. She returned to her home state to attend UConn medical school. She completed her residency in internal medicine at the Rhode Island Hospital, Brown School of Medicine. Following a year at locum tenens where she worked in Alaska, California, and Arizona, she completed a pulmonary and critical care fellowship at New England Medical Center, Tufts School of Medicine. After graduation, she worked as an attending physician at Danbury Hospital and transitioned to UConn in 2007.

As an Associate Professor in Medicine, Dr. Kanaan divides her time between clinical care and teaching. She is passionate about bringing ultrasound to the bedside and has developed an ultrasound curriculum for pulmonary and critical care fellows as well as hospitalists. She directs a statewide ultrasound course for physicians.

Outside of medicine, she is a mom of four children. Her hobbies include cooking, travel, and sports.

Kevin A. Braghirol, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine

Dr Kevin Braghirol is an academic Hospital Medicine physician at UConn Health. He went to UConn for undergraduate studies and medical school. He completed Internal Medicine Residency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. He is the site director for the inpatient Internal Medicine rotation at John Dempsey Hospital for the 3rd and 4th year UConn medical students. When he is not seeing patients or teaching, he enjoys spending time outdoors with his wife, Nikki, and golden retriever, Larry.

Rebecca Andrews, M.D.
Professor of Medicine
Associate Program Director, Categorical Internal Medicine
Lead Physician Internal Medicine Associates, Farmington

Dr. Andrews received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biology at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, MA before relocating to Connecticut for medical school at the University of Connecticut. She remained at the University to complete a residency including a chief medical resident year. Upon completing her residency, she practiced at a community health center where she served as the medical director and a member of the company’s QA/QI team.

She joined the faculty at UConn in 2009 and divides her time between clinical care and teaching. She is a Professor of Medicine and practicing Internal Medicine Primary Care physician with focuses on health prevention and high quality chronic disease management; chronic pain and safe opioid prescribing; women’s health; LGBTQ+ care; and healthcare policy. She has been recognized for her clinical care as one of Hartford Magazines Top Doctors. Dr. Andrews is the Director of Ambulatory Education and an Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program. As such, she is involved in the daily activities of the resident ambulatory clinic, mentoring, teaching, and increasing the quality of delivered care. She has developed several curricular innovations such as the office based medicine track, a business of medicine course, and a women's health track for future primary care. She is the director of the specialized primary care training tracks within the residency program. She serves as the physician lead for the Patient Centered Medical Home, the Connecticut Comprehensive Pain Center, and Internal Medicine Associates in Farmington. She is also currently serving as the Governor of the CT Chapter for the American College of Physicians and Co-Chairs the Opioid Task Force at UConn Health.

At home, she is a mom of two kids and has a long list of hobbies including creative writing, running, and photography.

Robotics Engineering – FULL

The robotics engineering course is designed for high-school students to provide them with understanding of robotics as an engineering discipline. The participating students will learn about a number of newly emerging robotics technologies and their impacts on a variety of areas ranging from industrial sectors, such as manufacturing, medical, defense; home assistance to elderly and disabled people; to improving learning for autistic children/students. The main goal of the course is to motivate the students in pursuing robotics as an engineering discipline by providing them an introduction to behind the scenes science and art of robotics. The course will involve interactive and fun-filled group sessions that include video lectures, interacting with real world robots, and hands-on programming.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

Demonstrate an understanding of the robotics as an engineering discipline, state of the art in robotics and the relevant skills and knowledge required to become a roboticist.
Describe the nature and type of research work conducted in robotics in various state of the art robotics disciplines and the impact of those on our world.
Develop problem solving, critical thinking, and programming skills.

Interactive introductory lectures on history of robotics and overview of robotics engineering as an interdisciplinary field.
An overview of the three main areas of robotics engineering using a mix of video tutorials and class discussions. The areas are: Bio-robots, Human-robot interaction, Autonomous robots
An invigorating hands-on experience of discovering the intricacies of electrical circuit wiring, programming on microcontrollers, and robot building using kits.
Interaction with real world robots

Shalabh Gupta received his M.S. degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering, and his Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA, in 2004, 2005, and 2006, respectively. He is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Connecticut. His current research interests include distributed autonomy, cyber–physical systems, robotics, network intelligence, data analytics, information fusion, and fault diagnosis in complex systems. Dr. Gupta is currently serving as the Chief Editor of Frontiers in Robotics and AI (Specialty Section: Smart Sensor Networks and Autonomy) and an Associate Editor of Structural Health Monitoring: An International Journal. Dr. Gupta has published around 120 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers.

Abhishek Dutta received his MSc in informatics from the University of Edinburgh with informatics prize for outstanding thesis in 2007 and his PhD with distinction in electromechanical engineering from Ghent University in 2014. He was then an aerospace postdoc at the coordinated science laboratory of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign till 2016. Since 2016 he is an assistant professor of ECE at UConn and is affiliated to BME and UTC-IASE. His research lab is focused on systems medicine that deals with disease network modeling and control and on biological robotics dealing with neuromuscular control of insects.

Data Science – FULL

Data science is a fast developing science of extracting meaningful information from massive data for better decision-making. It is interdisciplinary by nature, involving statistics, computing, and domain knowledge. Important principles of data science will be elaborated through interactive games and real applications in this course.

Students will have a basic understanding of the essential components of data science as well as the basic computing skills needed to explore this field further independently. The fun, game-based introductions will engage students' interest in data science.

Haim Bar is an Associate Professor in Statistics at the University of Connecticut. He received his Ph.D. in statistics from Cornell University in 2012. He received his M.Sc. in statistics in 2010 (Cornell University) and an M.Sc. in computer science in 2002 (Yale University). He received his bachelor's degree in mathematics (Cum Laude) in 1993, at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

His professional interests include statistical modeling, shrinkage estimation, high throughput applications in biology (e.g., genomics), Bayesian statistics, variable selection, and machine learning. From 1995 to 1997, he was with Motorola, Israel, as a computer programmer in the Wireless Access Systems Division. From 1997 until 2003 he worked for MicroPatent, LLC, where he held the position of Director of Software Development. In 2003 he moved to Ithaca, NY, and worked as a Principal Scientist at ATC-NY. Prior to coming to UConn, he worked at the Cornell Statistical Consulting Unit (CSCU) and the Department of Statistical Science at Cornell, as a consultant and lecturer.

HaiYing Wang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of Connecticut. He was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of New Hampshire from 2013 to 2017. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Statistics at the University of Missouri in 2013, and his M.S. from the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2006. His research interests include informative subdata selection for big data, model selection, model averaging, measurement error models, and semi-parametric regression.

Jun Yan is a Professor of Statistics at the University of Connecticut. He received his Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 2003. He was an Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa before joining UConn in 2007. His research interests include survival analysis, clustered data analysis, multivariate dependence, spatial extremes, and statistical computing. He is actively involved in applications and education of data science in public health, climate change, ecology, and sports. He has a special interest in making advanced statistical methods widely accessible via open-source software. Dr. Yan is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and is the Editor of the Journal of Data Science.

More info is available at http://merlot.stat.uconn.edu/~jyan/.

Introduction to Human Movement Sciences – FULL

Understand the role and responsibilities of various medical and allied health care professionals
Describe the role of various professional organizations (e.g., NATA, APTA, and ACSM) organizational structure, and the history of the association
Investigate various professions, including: codes or ethics of professional practice, standards, scope of practice, accrediting body, education requirements for certification, employment settings available, population(s) they serve, relationship between other organizations or health care professionals, board exam or credentialing requirements, process and requirement to maintain credentials, and state regulation.
Discuss various legal issues that influence the health care professions at the state and national levels

Dr. Diakogeorgiou received her BS in athletic training from UConn in 2004. During her time at UConn as an undergraduate student she served on the Student Athletic Training Organization as the Vice President and President of the UConn Hellenic Society. She worked with an array of teams including the UConn Women’s Basketball team and UConn Football Team and participated in multiple research studies as an undergraduate research assistant. After finishing her degree, she pursued her Masters of Business Administration from Sacred Heart University with a concentration in healthcare in order to help the profession of Athletic Training grow in the healthcare field. At Sacred Heart she served as a graduate assistant and worked with the Women’s Ice Hockey, Men’s Soccer and Softball teams. Before graduating she was awarded the outstanding contribution award for the Athletic Training Education Program for her dedication to the students while serving as a preceptor.

Dr. Diakogeorgiou then moved onto working for Select Physical Therapy where she began as the Head Athletic Trainer for Berlin High School where she developed policies and procedures, emergency action plans and grew the athletic training program at the school being the first full time athletic trainer at Berlin High School. Dr. Diakogeorgiou was promoted to Sports Medicine Director where she launched the Mobile Sports Medicine Center, 24-hour Injury Hotline and developed many relationships and sponsorships with large athletic organizations. She was then promoted to Center Manger where she managed three physical therapy clinics.

After 7 years at Select, Dr. Diakogeorgiou returned to Sacred Heart as a Clinical Assistant Professor for the athletic training program and later became the Clinical Education Coordinator where she played a vital role in developing the programs clinical education sites, assisting the program through the accreditation process and starting the first Masters in Athletic Training program in CT. During this time Dr. Diakogeorgiou also served as a faculty mentor for the Digital Institute, served as one of the primary investigators on multiple concussion related research studies and completed her PhD in Health and Human Performance from Concordia University – Chicago. Her dissertation focused on the use of airway adjunct devices in the equipment laden athlete with the use of a high-fidelity simulator. Dr. Diakogeorgiou then served as the Clinical Education Coordinator at Southern CT State University for 1 year. She was very excited to return to her alma amateur and presently serves as the Program Director of the Athletic Training Education Program at the University of Connecticut.

Dr. Diakogeorgiou also serves as the Connecticut Athletic Trainers’ Association Governmental Affairs Committee Co-Chair where she played an integral role in updating the CT Athletic Trainers’ Scope of Practice and Licensure laws. Dr. Diakogeorgiou was awarded Athletic Trainer of the Year for the state of CT in 2014. She was recently elected to the Board of Education in her town and owns and operates a small family run CPR company with her husband, Vasilios. Her previous research includes the perception of healthcare professionals regarding athletic trainer’s roles and responsibilities, prehospital care of the athlete and concussion baseline testing. Connecticut has always been her home and she enjoys spending time with her husband and 3 children.

Emma Zuk, MS, ATC – Emma completed a BS in Athletic Training from High Point University in North Carolina and a Masters in Exercise Science from the University of Connecticut. Currently, Emma is a 4th year Ph.D. student in Kinesiology at UConn with an anticipated graduation date of Summer 2023. She is also pursuing graduate certificates in College Instruction and Public Health.

Emma’s research focus is on the influence of social determinants on physical activity in children. She is the Associate director of social media for the Institute of Sports Medicine, which works with various partners to ensure athlete safety prior to injury through returning to play. Emma has experience teaching biomechanics, upper and lower extremity evaluation, first year experience and more. She is thrilled to be teaching during Pre-College Summer!

VR and Video Game Design – FULL

If you play games, chances are you've thought about creating them yourself. So come in and create a game from scratch using industry-standard tools and see if you like it! There are careers in art, programming, design, and business in the video game industry, which is bigger than the music, sports, or movie industry and is currently seeing huge growth in sales as entertainment focuses on esports and home entertainment.

By the end of this course, you will have created a virtual reality game as a portfolio piece for your future college applications and get feedback on your search. If you have a portfolio already, awesome! if you're just getting started and are thinking "OMG where do I even start?," that's ok, we can help get you on the right track. Whether it's finding opportunities at video game companies that are looking for play-testers or making a series of game prototypes, let's figure it out together!

In this course, students will be able to:

Produce a video game prototype
Analyze a video game and understand terminology applied in the gaming world
Explain a list of general functions and elements which make up a video game
Achieve familiarity with the principles, terminology, procedures, and practices of game design and production
Provide peer assessments and constructive feedback to fellow students
Design the game mechanics for a video game
Design and map level progression for a video game

Did you know that Flappy Bird was made in a couple of days? There are games that are beautiful, games that are fun, and games that make you want to scream. Our job is to enable you to develop your own "Work of Game" and focus on something you would want to play yourself.
The game industry is huge! We find out what companies and career paths exist in the industry by investigating portfolios from developers of Halo, Assassins Creed, and Call of Duty. We also take a look at portfolios from students graduating with a 4-year degree, so that you can find a benchmark for "what you'll need to be able to learn"
You can't make something if you don't understand it! Part of a Game Designer's job is to examine games critically, so we will play some short web games and analyze their content.

Professor Kenneth Thompson

Ken worked in the game industry for eight years as a Game Designer and Lead Designer before coming to the University of Connecticut. His responsibilities included directing game projects from start to finish, programming unique scenarios using game development tools, and working with publishers such as SEGA, Electronic Arts, and Activision. He has worked with Blockbuster franchises such as Iron Man, Spider-Man, Captain America, Madagascar, Shrek, and over a dozen others. His work in the video game industry has received Nickelodeon’s Kids Choice Award for best video game, Indie Game of the Year, and Innovation Awards from industry publications. He now works on serious and entertainment games with grants through the National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and The National Institute of Health.

Ken Thompson’s Faculty Page: https://dmd.uconn.edu/person/kenneth-thompson/

And website: http://gamedevprofessor.com/

Marine Biology – FULL

Prerequisites: Two years of High School Science and Math through Algebra II with a grade of C or higher

Marine scientist strive to understand the properties of the ocean and coastal waters. This understanding will allow us to make decisions about how to protect marine life and sustain ocean resources. To do this, marine scientists make observations and collect data on plant and animal diversity, ocean temperatures, currents, chemistry, and geology.

This hands-on course will have you making these same observations both out on the Long Island Sound (LIS), along the shore, in the laboratory and on the computer. Over the week you will study fish diversity in a nearby cove and marine invertebrate inhabitants of our rocky intertidal as well as seagrass and seaweed populations. You will conduct plankton tows and study our campus tidal pools. Dissections and laboratory experiments will inform you about the physiology and adaptations of local marine animals. We will collect data on the chemical and physical environment using instrumentation and sensors. Highlights of the hands-on nature of the course are listed below.

By the end of the week you will have learned and worked with many different types of equipment and instruments. You will conducted lab work and instrumental analysis. However, the key to being a good scientist is to be curious and ask good questions. You will use math, test hypothesis and apply reasoning to interpret your data and explain your observations. You can then begin to answer some of these questions and generate new ones. This is the foundation of marine ecology. We will be using this approach throughout the week. Finally, we will converge all our topics, data and observations to develop a better appreciation of the marine environment and create a sustainability plan for eastern LIS. This will also involve the critical thinking which we will have incorporated throughout the week as well as creativity.

Our goals for you are:

That you leave the program with a better understanding of how scientists discover and explain the workings of the natural world
That you learn how oceanography helps us to appreciate and manage our planet’s resources
To understand that marine ecology is the interaction of marine organisms with each other as well as their physical and chemical environment
To appreciate that the survival of marine life depends upon our stewardship of the oceans
To always be curious and think critically

Dr. Claudia Koerting has been a scientist, faculty member and academic advisor in the department of marine sciences for nearly twenty years and she has been teaching at UConn for nearly 30 years. Her research at UConn has included marine benthic ecology, detection and ecology of marine pathogens and analysis of toxin producing microalgae but she now focuses on water quality. She is the undergraduate program coordinator for Marine Sciences. Currently Dr. Koerting teaches several undergraduate courses and mentors undergraduate research projects. Her interests and research continue in the fields of marine chemistry and marine microbiology.

Nutrition: Human Nutrition and Health – FULL

Prerequisite: High School Biology with a grade of C or higher

The field of nutritional science explores the interactions between living organisms and food. Exploring nutritional science concepts is applicable to everyday life and a variety of professions that includes medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, physician assistant, dietetics, education, policy, and the food, retail, and restaurant industry. Taking this course will give you an advantage about how what we eat or drink impacts the functioning of the human body and a person's health.

This course will introduce you to the field of nutritional science and health. Students will have interactive in-class lectures with videos. In addition, students will use critical thinking skills to complete case studies and hands-on activities individually and small groups to further their understanding about dietary behaviors, nutrients in foods and the human body, and linking nutrient intake to overall health. In addition, students will learn about educational pathways and experiences leading to careers in healthcare, nutrition, and the food industry.

Molika Chea is a Lecturer in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Connecticut. She has completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Connecticut majoring in Biological Sciences and Nutritional Sciences.

With an interest for understanding the nutrient function in foods and dietary behaviors, she continued her graduate studies in Nutritional Sciences at the University of Connecticut. She has conducted research with populations in Connecticut about meeting the recommendations for plant-based food groups and the ability to identify whole grain foods.

Dr. Chea currently teaches NUSC 1165: Fundamentals of Nutrition and NUSC 1167: Food, Culture, and Society during the academic year.

Earth and Environmental Sciences – FULL

This summer experience program focused on Earth and Environmental Science, high school students will explore the field via a course bridging camp and college-level study. Brought to you by UConn Department of Earth Sciences Faculty, Dr. Ouimet and Dr. Hren, students will have the opportunity to work side-by-side with field researchers and experts.

Geoscientists study all aspects of the Earth, including its history, structure, rocks, soils, rivers, oceans and atmosphere. The UConn Environmental Science pre-college summer course will introduce this wide-ranging discipline and discuss how earth and environmental scientists play a crucial role in understanding and making predictions about a diverse range of earth resources, processes and hazards, from mineral deposits to earthquakes to floods and climate change. Why is this important? Earth’s ecology is closely linked to sustainability and environmental science is key to this pursuit.

This Earth and Environmental summer course for high school students will integrate:

lectures and dynamic learning modules on background geoscience material
field and lab demonstrations
collection and analysis of rock, soil and water samples
guest visits from Geoscience faculty across the wide range topics in the discipline

William Ouimet, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Geosciences

Dr. Ouimet (Will) is an Associate Professor of Geosciences at UConn. He loves working with students outdoors and on field trips, and it’s one of the reasons he became a Geologist. His research and teaching involves the study of erosion, rivers, landslides and environmental change around the world, as well as the influence of human activities. He works in the field, where he collects samples and maps out geological features, in the lab, where he analyzes rocks, water, soil and sediment, and on the computer, where he explores remote sensing datasets of the earth and uses models to simulate how landscapes change through time. His research has taken him all over world, from the Colorado Rockies, to Greece, Tibet, Taiwan, and the Bahamas. It has also allowed him to appreciate and explore the geology underfoot and processes at play here in southern New England, right where he grew up.

Michael Hren, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Geosciences

Dr. Hren (Mike) is also an Associate Professor of Geosciences at UConn. His research and teaching is focused on understanding how Earth’s climate, ecosystems, and environment evolve over time and how Earth’s history informs its future. His work takes him to mountain ranges around the globe, from the high peaks of Patagonia to the mountains of Tibet to the Sierra Nevada of California, where he and his students collect sediment, rocks, soils and water to bring back to UConn for analysis. He is the director of the Stable Isotope and Organic Molecular Biogeochemistry laboratory, and when not traveling for research, can be found working in the laboratory with students and colleagues from UConn and visitors from around the world analyzing modern and ancient plants, sediments and even an occasional woolly mammoth, to understand Earth and life through time.

Is Medicine for you?

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Meet the Professors

Agnest S. Kim, M.D., Ph. D.

Debapriya Datta, M.D., FCCP

George Y. Wu, M.D., Ph.D.

Jennifer P. Kanaan, M.D.

Kevin A. Braghirol, M.D.

Narinder Maheshwari, M.D.

Rebecca Andrews, M.D.

Impacts of Robotics Engineering on Our World: An Introduction to Real World Robots

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Learning Data Science Through Games and Applications

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What does it take to be a healthcare professional?

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Come Game Jam with us and make your ideas come to life, and share with your friends!

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Get your feet and hands wet and salty as you learn how marine scientists study Long Island Sound ecosystems

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How does Dietary Behaviors Impact Human Body Function and Health?

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The Earth, The Environment, and You

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