Meet Some University Employees
Sujata
The Clinical Research Center provides the resources and environment to University faculty to conduct human subjects research. At any one time, anywhere from fifty to eighty different protocols are active at the Center, and almost all of them use the Core Laboratory in some capacity. "Every month, new protocols bring in something new that makes me read into science more, do background research, keep up-to-date with the latest publications." Sujata must also look into new test matter and standardize and validate new techniques - techniques that are now only available to Center users.
"I looked for a job at the University of Chicago because of its reputation for excellent scholarship. Just listening to the radio and by word of mouth, even when I was in India, you hear about the kind of research that goes on here."
The University has also allowed Sujata to integrate teaching into her position. After training many new employees who she felt lacked a practical understanding of what went on in a laboratory, she designed her own hands-on undergraduate course, Fundamentals of Clinical Research. She went to the Dean of the Biological Sciences Division, explained what she wanted to do, and was teaching her course the following term. In the five years she has taught the course, many of her students have gone on to medical school and pursued master degrees, and several have come straight to work at the University Hospital. "The practical knowledge they get in my course really helps them build a career."
Sujata also utilizes the University's reputation in another way: she sends her daughter here. Sujata encouraged her daughter to apply to many academically-rigorous schools, but was thrilled when she choose the University of Chicago, not only because of the tuition remission program. "The University's core is so rigorous that you get exposed to every academic discipline, and when you integrate these many different modes of thinking, you prepare yourself for life."
Sujata has certainly used the University's interdisciplinary emphasis to her advantage. "I've really created my own position here as a research technologist and a lecturer. The University was open to me developing my career in my own way. In doing so, I feel that I am positively contributing to the University's mission: 'dedication to the interrogative.'"
After thirteen years as a laboratory technician at another Chicago hospital, Sujata felt the need to move on. Performing the same tasks over and over again, day in and day out, did not provide enough challenge. "It lacked the academic freedom that I cherish so much." So seven years ago she decided to come to the University of Chicago as a new employee to work in the Clinical Research Center. She still oversees both the technical and regulatory practices of a laboratory - performing assays, storing specimens and processing assays for other labs - but here she finds challenge.
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