Two students and a professor look at a beehive.

A summer of science

Delilah Hammarlund ’26 (left) and Arianna Groover-Landis ’25 (center) worked in Biology Professor Heather Mattila’s (right) lab to study the effect of honey bee queen microbiomes on queen quality and productivity.

Program lets Wellesley student researchers work on projects alongside faculty.

Author  Photos: Joel Haskell, Text: Shannon O'Brien
Published on 
Category

Each summer, students in Wellesley’s Science Center Summer Research Program stay on campus to work on projects with faculty in a variety of disciplines. At the end of the program, which is open to all students regardless of research experience, they present their work during a poster session.

“I enjoyed the autonomy and chance for leadership that the summer research program has given me,” said Scout Painter ’25, who worked in the lab of Adrian Castro, assistant professor of geosciences. “I was able to design and begin a project that I am really passionate about, and I have been given the resources and mentorship to feel supported throughout this work.”

“It’s an eye-opening and empowering moment to experience alongside other Wellesley sibs,” said I-see Warisa Jaidee ’25, who joined Professor of Physics James Battat’s lab. “The faculty members will always be there to help you customize the experience to match your goals. I’d strongly recommend this program to everyone.”

Photographer Joel Haskell stopped by some of the labs over the summer to capture the students and faculty at work.

Two students and their professor developed a cryogenic facility to test prototype neutrino detectors.
I-see Warisa Jaidee ’25 (left) and Genevieve Bui ’27 (center) worked with James Battat (right) to develop a cryogenic facility to test prototype neutrino detectors. Jaidee said she joined Battat’s lab because “there are so many fascinating experiments for studying things that are not visible to the eyes, like these tiny particles.” Bui was looking for a lab that would expose her to a new topic. “You won’t know everything to do with your lab going into research,” she said. “But I chose my project for that exact reason—I didn’t know anything about neutrino detection and I wanted to learn.”
Two students and their professor work in a lab.
In the lab of Louise Darling (center), associate professor of biological sciences, Grace Dodd ’25 (left) and Eva Pawlowska ’25 (right) investigated two types of cardiac ion channel proteins that are important in human physiology and disease, and their role in arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. Dodd, a Beckman Scholar and McNair Scholar, said the summer program showed her what it’s like to complete a long-term research project. “I got to see so many different stages of my project and how it evolved with the work of previous students and with my work over the summer,” she said. Pawlowska also built upon work she started earlier in the academic year. “The most challenging part of this all was definitely to condense all of my work into a poster at the end and to put together my results and interpret them,” she said.
Two students received EEG training as part of their lab. They are connecting wires to a cap a young person is wearing. A monitor is at left showing scan waves.
Marissa Schimpf ’26 (left) and Rachel Seo ’26 (right) explored whether kids with irritability respond differently when their frustration is caused by other people rather than their own behavior, as members of the lab of Christen Deveney, James W. and Patricia T. Poitras DS ’91 Associate Professor in the Natural Sciences and associate professor of psychology. Seo said being thrown into the unknown was challenging. “I have never worked or taken a class with Professor Deveney, and her research centering irritability was all new,” she said. “At first, I was a bit overwhelmed because it felt like so much information was being thrown at me, but Professor Deveney was able to walk me through the entire process to catch up.” She picked the project because she is interested in “the bridging of psychology and education, specifically studying the development of psychological processes that impact children’s well-being, learning, and social relationships.”
A student and professor work at a microscope.
Hana Nagata ’24 (left), a student in the lab of Yuichiro Suzuki (right), professor of biological sciences, investigated the activity of a juvenile-specific gene to answer how insects develop and ultimately, how the pupa evolve. Nagata advisesfellow student researchers “to not get dejected by unexpected results. As scientists, we cannot control how ‘the science’ is supposed to work.”
A professor kneels and points to a rock while two students look on.
With Adrian Castro (left), assistant professor of geosciences, Scout Painter ’25 (center) and Emlynn Merrill ’25 (right) explored the tectonic history of New England and beyond using metamorphic petrology and geochemistry. “My favorite part of our summer research was definitely going on field trips to outcrops in Massachusetts,” Merrill said. “On these trips we got to see the rock and large-scale structures in place in the field instead of through a microscope in the lab.” Painter designed her own project with support and mentorship from Castro: “It has been so rewarding to see my ideas, goals, and research come together and grow into a project that I will be turning into my senior thesis, and I feel grateful that I was able to do the work that I wanted to do.”