Member Spotlight: Laney Community College and UES, Inc.
The BioMADE Education and Workforce Development team recently hosted a site visit tour to assess industry workforce needs. Nine leaders from universities, community colleges, and the U.S. government toured government and industry sites around the country to learn about pathways to industry, best practices for internships, needed resources, and more. We caught up with two members – Laney Community College and UES, Inc. – to hear about their experiences with education and workforce development.
Describe the value proposition for internship programs at your organization.
Laney College: The value of an internship cannot be overstated. Internships provide that real-world experience students need to start their career. We used to have great difficulty getting our students into internships prior to the explosion of synthetic biology companies in the Bay Area. Biopharma companies still tend to want students from four-year schools only. Synthetic biology companies are more open to community college students. For these companies, internships open opportunities for students from a wider, more diverse background. Many of these companies tell me that they look at their internship program as a tryout for future employees.
UES: At UES, we work with about 30 interns a year on average across many STEM disciplines. These opportunities broaden students’ exposure to various scientific fields and careers, which in turn helps mold their academic path and eventual job search efforts. Additionally, it’s clear that our interns gain important knowledge and skills performing meaningful work that prepares them for rewarding science and engineering careers. They are able to transition their classroom skills and principles and apply them in problem-solving environments with real-world applications. We treat interns as employees and part of the research teams, and the structure, guidance, and mentorship involved fosters and reinforces important communication and networking skills that will benefit the students as they move on in their career paths. As this develops a future workforce with a more mature skillset, they are able to work and execute technical projects better whether that be with us or wherever their pathway leads them. UES sees it as a win-win to invest in a well-trained future workforce in multiple disciplines.
What did it take for your organization to develop a robust education-to-industry pathway?
Laney College: The most important way we developed a pathway to industry is by networking with managers at biotech companies in our area and finding out what skills they like to see in their job candidates. We have yearly industry advisory board meetings and also have very regular interactions with our industry partners. Attending networking events for life science professionals has been a great way to get our program’s name out there and make connections with a wide variety of companies. As far as resources, we have relied almost exclusively on grants for equipment and consumables.
UES: Both UES and our Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) colleagues have a strong commitment to inspiring and developing a US STEM workforce. As a R&D service provider, we are highly embedded with our partners and customers at the AFRL, so it’s been integral to have the support from them to be able to bring students into the lab spaces. Providing hands-on, minds-on opportunities to address real-life challenges, with positive impact on the National Security Enterprise, has been a long-standing commitment of ours. UES is able to both leverage internship opportunities through AFRL and through our own tech transfer and commercialization efforts to create such opportunities within our workforce. Of course, support at the corporate level as well as interest from our scientists and engineers is essential to providing strong experiences for our interns. Many of our UES associates also volunteer their own time to mentor and serve in outreach efforts through their professional societies and local/regional educational partnerships, and we maintain a network of relationships with local academic organizations. What we have created is a robust ecosystem, which nurtures many pathways in education and workforce development.
Can you highlight any student success stories?
Laney College: Rex is a recent example of a student success story. Rex came to our program last year and started working toward his A.S. degree in biomanufacturing. We went on a tour of a startup called ZymoChem at the end of the fall semester. Rex later applied for an internship and got it. It was a day schedule, so it worked perfectly with our night classes. He just recently moved to a more mature synthetic biology startup in South San Francisco.
UES: We’ve had many students who come to us for part time internship return to us for multiple and/or long-term engagements throughout their educational careers. One shining example is Christina, who started as an iGEM high school student and later joined UES as a student research assistant – read all about her journey here. Additionally, over a dozen of our interns have advanced to full time careers with UES over the past five years.
Laney College: Another recent success is a high school student named Jessica. Jessica is in the top of her class as a junior and was an outstanding student in Doug Bruce’s biomanufacturing lab. She already had a couple companies interested in her doing an internship with them when I told her about a company called Geltor. Geltor is one of our long-standing partners and has hired many of our graduates over the years. Jessica got a summer internship in an analytical lab, and now plans on going to a four-year school to study chemical engineering.
Thank you to all of our members and government partners who participated in this site visit tour, including ABPDU, the Air Force Research Lab, Amyris, DEVCOM Soldier Center, Harford Community College, Laney Community College, the National Center for the Biotechnology Workforce at Forsyth Tech, North Carolina State University’s Biomanufacturing Training and Education Center, Pow.bio, Solano Community College, and UES.