Thea Nikolaou/ Dr. Solomon - Week 8

 The last week of the program felt a bit more relaxed. I worked on my final presentations for the immersion term. I found it very difficult to cut down the content of my presentation to fit in the 4 minute time limit while still giving enough context for the research and also talking about my clinical immersion experience. I also presented at the pathology weekly academic meeting a longer version of my presentation which was surprisingly much easier to prepare since there was no strict time limit. I was initially intimidated by the idea of presenting to pathologists and MD/PhDs that have so much more knowledge and experience than I, however, I got some really good feedback from most of the doctors present as well as the lab technicians and clinical genomics bioinformaticians. It was fun to see a discussion stem from this presentation and be able to offer some of the knowledge I gained working here throughout the summer. Lastly, I shared my R script and python code that I have worked on with the bioinformatics team and hope that it can be used in their future work. I also discussed with Dr. Solomon about possibly continuing to work with him and the team on the mutational signatures analysis project. 

On Thursday, we had a dinner with everyone who participated in the immersion program which was a really good and fun way to close out the summer. Leaving New York City was bittersweet as I am excited for a new beginning in Ithaca and an official start to my PhD, but I had an amazing time getting to know the clinicians and lab members this summer and exploring the city. 

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