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“Division of labor for defensive retaliation and preemption by the peripheral and central nervous systems in the nudibranch Berghia” was published in Current Biology.

Berg, a double major in neuroscience and sociology and anthropology, and Boersma, a double major in neuroscience and psychology, worked with Dr. William Frost, Professor and Department Chair of Cell Biology and Anatomy at RFU, during the summers of 2021 and 2022. Frost served as their research mentor and senior author on the just-published paper.

Hands-on research

During this immersive program, Boersma conducted behavioral experiments on learning and memory. She also played a lead role in statistical analyses of optically recorded neuronal activity during learning and developed a novel approach (including the generation of new MATLAB code) for generating across-preparation maps of the locations of neurons of interest in the brain from their activity recordings, Boersma says in her LinkedIn profile.

Berg’s responsibilities included assisting in running experiments, as well as analyzing the subsequent data. In November 2021, she presented a poster of this research at the annual Society for Neuroscience conference.

“To pull students into this environment outside of the classroom—to show them what we do as science for careers—is a joy.”
Dr. William Frost, Rosalind Franklin University

Frost was instrumental in the development of the Summer Scholars Program with Lake Forest College faculty since the program’s inception in 2009. Now in its sixteenth year, this unique research program between a major medical school and a liberal arts college serves as the original and mainstay partnership program between Lake Forest College and Rosalind Franklin University.

“In recognition of the quality of our students and the value of inter-institutional collaboration, Dr. Frost initiated the program with me and since then has directly mentored 18 Lake Forest students. Four of them have published as co-authors with him in prominent scientific journals and most of them headed for post-graduate careers, including MD, MD/PhD, and PhD degrees,” said Lake Forest College Disque D. and Carol Gram Deane Professor of Biology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and NeuroscienceShubhik DebBurman.

In recognition of his contribution to the Summer Scholars Program, Frost was inducted into the College’s 2024 Class of Nu Rho Psi as an honorary lifetime faculty member. Nu Rho Psi is the National Honor Society in Neuroscience.

In a citation presented to Frost during the annual spring induction ceremony, he was honored for his role in initiating the research program, through which over 40 RFU faculty from 10 graduate departments have mentored over 200 Lake Forest undergraduates in research projects. Most of those students headed for postgraduate STEM and health careers.

‘A strong ally’

“Dr. Frost has been such a strong ally and advocate for the liberal arts, and for our students in particular. He has contributed significantly to our Biology Department and Neuroscience Program,” DebBurman said. 

Frost looked back at his own experience with applying to PhD programs when helping to develop the Summer Undergraduate Research Scholars program with Lake Forest College.

“If you want to go to graduate school and get a PhD to become a scientist, which is what I wanted to do, you are competing with all of these people with bachelor's degrees applying to the same programs,” Frost said. “How do they pick the best ones to offer positions to? They look at, most importantly, their research experience. What have you done so far? They want to pick people that have proven that they can do research. That’s what this does for them.”

Frost says having a published paper is the “gold standard” in terms of getting into graduate school. “There are a lot of other things they look at, but that certainly helps,” he said.

Bringing undergraduates into the lab fuels Frost and other career scientists. “Science research is what we do. We teach a few lectures a year, but other than that, we're doing research and getting grants and publishing. It’s our passion. To pull students into this environment outside of the classroom—to show them what we do as science for careers—is a joy,” he said.

As a mentor, Frost keeps in touch with many of his Lake Forest summer researchers beyond the time they spend in his lab. 

“I have the opportunity to help them take their next steps, for example, writing a letter of recommendation for either a medical school or graduate school application. That’s a pleasure. It feels really good to help people because I was there myself a long time ago,” he said.

This year’s class of 18 undergraduate scholars, the sixteenth cohort of the program, includes 15 Foresters who are getting their first-ever biomedical research experiences. Thirteen scholars are students of color, with many from first-generation and/or backgrounds historically underserved in STEM.—Photo by Max Thomsen for Rosalind Franklin University