DAY 1

Day One

The day began as any other would – with a bowl of Rice Krispies and a groggy goodbye as I trudged out the door. I was on my way to downtown Durham for my first day at FHI 360, a global health institute with a particular focus on contraceptive technology and innovation. This was extremely exciting for me, as I have always been interested in global and public health, and this would allow me to take a deeper more real delve into what it truly means to be involved in international development when viewed from both business and personal lenses.

About a cup of coffee and a half an hour later, I arrived at FHI’s entrance, tucked between DPAC and the Bulls Stadium. That’s one thing I absolutely loved about this: the location. I’ve always been a fan of Durham, from the food scene to the aesthetics of the buildings, and FHI was definitely smack dab in the middle of it all. I waited for Hope, Chloe, and Maddie to arrive, and then we all entered the building. We promptly met up with Celia Mizelle (Maddie’s sister – a CA alum that is interning at FHI), who introduced us to Lauren. We then proceeded to have a tour of the facility, where we were all very impressed with its modern design, beautiful pictures, personal library, and – perhaps most importantly – the break room. The break room has a patio that allows those who enter to walk out almost directly over the Durham Bulls field, which is, for lack of better words, quite the view. Rest assured, we spent a lot of time in there during our couple of hours off.

After we had seen most everything there was to see in the expansive three stories that compose FHI, we began the first of many (I say many, I mean approximately three) very cool meetings with very cool people. We had the opportunity to conference with Jill Sergison, who was able to explain a little bit more about what exactly it is that FHI does, what it is exactly that they do, and what exactly all of us were going to be doing there throughout the duration of our visit. I found it very interesting that there seemed to be no set academic path one had to take in order to ensure a job in global health – people we were introduced to had taken majors such as public health, but others such as Ms. Sergison had more esoteric jobs, such as being a practicing midwife in addition to being an associate scientist at FHI. Not everyone entering public or global health has backgrounds in pre-med or the Peace Corp, which was slightly reassuring to hear. We then met with Lucy Wilson, who was able to dictate some of the problems that FHI 360 faces in modern society, and how they have to work to ensure that they manage to receive the funding that they need in order to uphold their mission statement and continue their hard work. Afterwards, we met back up with Celia and Aubrey Weber, both of whom tasked us with developing a way to utilize social media or technology in order to create an assessible way of monitoring who may need what contraceptives based on where they may live (demographics). Aubrey, who is in charge of managing social media for global health programs, detailed some of the problems that she faces in ensuring that the content she puts out is both accessible and relevant. It was interesting to learn more about the time and effort that goes into what may seem like a trivial task.

Needless to say, we’re definitely looking forward to the rest of our time here!

See ya tomorrow,

Caroline

Day One

Today then I shadowed someone from the web development division. I honestly knew very little about what kind of company SAS was. All I knew about it was that it included programming and something with analytics. After today, I can safely say that I know almost everything there is to know about SAS in general as well as what the web development division does and how they help SAS. Before I actually started shadowing, I sat down with Jeff Foxx, one of the managers of the division, to go over SAS as a whole and how his division plays a part in SAS. I learned that SAS sells multi-million dollar software that analyzes big data in a way that other companies such as banks and insurances can use. After we talked about SAS, I met with my host. She gave us a quick tour and introduced us to the 50 or so people in the web development division, explaining to me what they did. Afterwards, we spent a lot of time talking about how her job is to make sure all the websites are consistent, but are still able to be customized to the preferences of its audience. This is really important because there are over 50 SAS websites for every country, and updates for one site affects all of the other sites. She showed me a “blueprint” of how the countries are grouped by both language and region, and how changes to the websites move through a program called AEM as the process of activating these changes occurs. I thought it was really cool how the people at SAS are able to make changes to the live website fairly easy, and I think that SAS has come up with a really great way of simplifying the process of editing and even making new pages for the website. I learned that SAS is keen on streamlining everything to make things more efficient and easier for both employees and customers. Unlike what I originally thought, creating web pages does not require knowledge of html coding or programming skills in general. They use a program called AEM which is similar to word press, but much more extensive and allows for the writers and designers to create the pages themselves rather than having to take the time of communicating back and forth between designers/writers and programmers. All in all, I think that today was really interesting as well as engaging, since I also got fix errors and update some of the SAS websites.

site_structure_2017_june-2hjvbht (Blueprint)

After arriving around 9 am to Representative Grier Martin’s office in the General assembly, I was welcomed by his legislative assistant, Christopher Hailey. He showed me around the main General Assembly building as well as the legislative office building nearby. There was a protest going on in the main building, which was supposed to be concerning the changes to the Pension and Retirement section of the budget, but ended up being about the efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare. They began by giving speeches in front of the doors to the House Floor (pictured above), then they marched through to the Speaker’s office, chanting, and we watched them get arrested and filed out the door. Afterwards, I helped out with answering emails to constituents, and looked over Representative Martin’s calendar for the day. At 11:30, Rep. Martin came from Caucus and met with a constituent who was an architect and was concerned about a bill that was up for a vote that would allow interior designers to be able to sign off on building plans. The architect argued that this would cause safety code violations as interior designers are unqualified. He was oddly very passionate. We then headed to lunch. I then accompanied Mr. Hailey to a committee meeting to approve the Pension and Retirement section of the budget. Things were tense between the committee chair and a senior member, as he wasn’t allowed to add amendments or a recount of the final vote. The meeting was genuinely interesting and provided insight into how strong of a hold the Republicans have of the state legislature. At 3 pm, the final Session of the day began. Sessions are where the House meets to vote on a bill. Before it begins, the Speaker reads out who Reps have “extended courtesy”, or invited to the session. Then you have to stand up and wave as the General Assembly also stands and claps for you for some reason. My name was called and I was mortified. Next, bills were read and voted on, including the architecture bill which was on today’s schedule but was tabled for Thursday. I can’t wait for tomorrow, when the budget is going to be the main focus!

Day 1- Legal

Today I shadowed Mr. Howard Browne who is an attorney in the legal department at SAS. We started off our day with Mr. Browne explaining to me what SAS was as a business as I had told him that the only thing I knew about SAS was that they produced analytics software. He went into detail on the difference between the selling and the licensing of software, along with why it was so crucial for a large company like SAS to have a strong legal department. I spent most of my time in his office, though we also attended meeting with many of his colleagues . Mr. Browne joked that I wouldn’t truly be experiencing the SAS legal department without attending a meeting. After the meeting, we returned to his office and Mr. Browne gave me three documents to look over: the Professional Service Agreement, Services Agreement and the Master License Agreement. Mr. Browne allotted time for me to carefully read these documents, before we had an in depth discussion on word choice and what each section of the contracts meant. I was able to listen in on a call Mr. Browne had with a colleague to discuss contracts needed for the construction of additional solar panels and bee hives on campus. Afterwards we had lunch in the dining hall located in the basement of the building. Once we had finished our lunch, Mr. Browne used our free time to take me on a tour of the entire SAS campus. As we drove around I was able to see a side of SAS that I did not even know existed. Mr. Browne also explained how the work he did played a huge factor in the new buildings I saw as he specialized in construction law. Once we returned, Mr. Browne informed me that he had set up two different meetings for me with other lawyers under his supervision. I was able to speak with Karen and Janie, both who specialized in different facets of law at SAS, trademark registry and HR respectively, and gave additional insight into the type of work that is conducted into the legal department. At the end of the day Mr. Browne took me around the office and I was able to meet many of his colleagues who all specialized in something unique. Everyone in the legal department was very welcoming and more than willing to sit down and talk with me. Mr. Browne provided me with a great shadowing experience today as he was more than willing to answer questions and show me around. I’m very excited to experience the IT department tomorrow!

Day 1 – Introductions

My first day at FHI 360 was kind of exhausting, but fascinating, engaging, and above all, inspiring. The first thing I learned about the nonprofit – FHI 360 – is that the work they do involves an enormous number of acronyms that the company uses in their work. FHI 360, though now a large, global nonprofit with many focuses, was initially focused on family planning, and for the duration of our internships, we are lucky to be working with the CTI program, or contraceptive technology innovation. We spent our first day learning about the work that different members of the CTI have done, and what their career paths have been.

Jill Sergison, an associate scientist and midwife, talked to us about her non-traditional career path and experiences at FHI 360. Although she didn’t take the traditional route in the non-profit world of spending time in the Peace Corps before receiving her PhD, she still ended up at FHI 360 doing work that fascinated her. She also encouraged us to check our white American privilege when looking at project work – the differences of our lives in comparison to the women we are helping are substantial, and when designing projects we should consider those differences before making decisions.

Lucy Wilson, a technical advisor, talked about the possible struggles with funding the company faces. She works with various donors to secure funding for CTI projects, and as the Trump administration has released the new proposed budget, she has had to look into other sources of funding for FHI 360, as 65% of the non-profits funds come from US governmental agencies like the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Lastly, Aubrey Weber, a technical officer, talked with us about her work on social media campaigns for Linkages (improving treatment for HIV and AIDs) + Passages (improving family planning and sexual norms in Africa), and an upcoming campaign for CTI. She discussed some of her day-to-day activities, like drafting blogposts and tweets, and how the tense political climate and possible budget cuts for nonprofits conducting medical research have complicated what she can and can’t post on the company accounts.

In addition to talking with us, they also came up with some really cool projects for us to work on while we are at FHI 360. They would like us to come up with ways to use social media to make data collection about contraception more fun for teens, work on a video, modernize powerpoints, help develop a photo database, and do research on private philanthropists who may be interested in funding CTI.

I am so excited to continue working at FHI 360!

Day 1

Today I didn’t physically go to my internship, but I spent my time preparing for the upcoming days. I spent my time researching trending hashtags, and finding ways to gain more followers and views, as I am shadowing the marketers in the following weeks. I am super excited to see what kinds of things I will be doing/learning in the days to come. A few weeks ago I interviewed with the owner of Halie’s Boutique, and she highlighted some possibilities of merchandising the store, learning how the buying process works, running the social media accounts, and delivering marketing information to various businesses. The interview process was a bit intimidating, as it was my first time spending thirty minutes being questioned about me, my background, and my skills. By the end, the interview seemed more like a conversation and with time I became more comfortable. While at first I was dreading the interview, it was good practice and I was able to learn what questions I was good at answering and which ones I needed to prepare more for. Can’t wait for tomorrow to see what all I will learn!

Day 1: Hello

Despite my lack of familiarity with the Downtown Durham area, I was able to find the FHI 360 office with ease. Upon arrival, Hope, Caroline, Maddie and I were greeted by Celia and Lauren, two interns from Duke and UNC respectively, who gave us a thorough tour of the building. I admired the contemporary style and layout by area of research, but more importantly the plethora of photographs taken from various employees’ travels around the globe. We were trained on the unofficial “do’s and do not’s” as well as shown the go to hang out spot: the cafe that overlooks the Durham Bull’s stadium. Lastly, we were given our very own badges, schedules and pamphlets containing general statistics/facts.

After receiving our very own (temporary) cubicles, we prepared for the first of four hour long meetings. Our first meeting was with Jill Sergison, an associate scientist and nurse midwife. We learned a lot of introductory information regarding FHI 360, their mission and current areas of contraceptive research, in addition to Ms. Sergison’s background. One particularly interesting part of this nonprofit is that the employees come from widely-ranging pasts, revealing the versatility of the team. Following this initial meeting, we went to lunch with our mentors, providing a relaxing break and opportunity to get to know them better outside of the office.

We then met with Lucy Wilson, a technical advisor, who discussed potential mentee projects: research on financial and political commitments for family planning, modernizing presentations on contraceptive technology, artistic outreach, and a social media outreach for the contraceptive technology innovation initiative. We broadened our knowledge on FHI 360, and more specifically some of the current problems they are facing (i.e. a major one being potential funding cuts). The rest of our afternoon included two more meetings, with Celia Mizelle and Aubrey Weber, who explained our group project that targets social media for contraception. In short, we were tasked to come up with a means to survey adolescent girls globally to retrieve data, allowing the opportunity for modifications to current technology as well as providing direction for devices made in the future.

5 o’clock came quickly, and we left the office exhausted from a packed first day of work. However, we are extremely excited to return tomorrow and I am looking forward to many of the activities they have in store for us in the future, including meetings with Dr. Nanda who is a director of medical research, and Marga Eichleay who is an expert on drone use in public health.

Day 1: Well… I survived.

Kindergartener: “Do you have a daughter?”

Me: “No, I don’t.”

K: “Well, you look like you do.”

M: “Why do you think that?”

K: “‘Cause you’re OLD!”

Day 1: done. I survived! Woo hoo! As I am working with small children, particularly kindergarteners, I plan on beginning each post from here on out with my favorite quote of the day because kids say the funniest things.

Due to testing for the older grades, I’ll be spending the entirety of this week in Mrs. Cohen’s kindergarten class. If anyone needs any indication of how my day went, well, let’s just say that it’s going to be an early night for me. Don’t get me wrong, I adore small children, especially when they’re potty trained and know how to spell their own name. However, even as an ESL tutor and a camp counselor, I don’t know if anything could’ve quite prepared me for the chaos that is twenty-eight children aged five- or six-years-old at the end of May. People who think teachers are paid enough have never stepped foot in a kindergarten classroom with less than two weeks left of the school year and discovered things to be serene. At one point in the day, I looked up at the clock and realized, with utter horror, that it was only 1:00.

Now, it might sound like today was dreadful, but it wasn’t. I had loads of fun with all of the kids, even the ones I initially struggled with. Sure, there were some tantrums, some troublemakers, and some who just flat out ignored every authoritative figure, but with every conniption, there is something pleasant. There’s the pride in working one-on-one with a student and watching them get through a particularly tough word in a book or when helping them through a math assignment. There’s the joy in seeing them dance around to Uptown Funk during a break. There’s the elation in all of them wanting to sit next to you during lunch. There’s the feeling of warmth as all the kids cheer when you tell them you’ll be back the next day.

Yeah, kindergarteners can suck the energy out of you, but seeing the smiles on their faces is completely and utterly worth it. I’m proud and excited to be spending these next two weeks with the kids I met today, and I simply cannot wait to see what tomorrow will bring.

Day 1: Introduced to the Lab

Getting to the “CARL” building where my supervising post-doc works was a pain this morning. I had actually come to the Duke Medical Campus in Downtown Durham earlier in the year, so I was acquainted with the tortuous paths, high-rising brick buildings, and construction sites. Needless to say, I still got lost. Knowing that I’d get lost, I came to the lab one hour early, wandered around for thirty minutes, and (surprisingly) ran into my supervisor, Dr. Masoudi. Promptly, he directed to me to the lab’s manager with whom I signed some confidentiality paperwork. The lab is tucked at the top level of the building, where a plethora of groups are working on biochem projects. My specific lab, the Lefkowitz lab, deals with G-Protein Coupled Receptors that act as intercellular communication devices in eukaryotes (animal cells). These critical receptors come in thousands of different forms but they all work by wrapping around the cell membrane seven times. A “binding site” occupies the end of the receptor outside of the cell while a G-protein – a protein composed of three primary parts that can be ejected to communicate intracellular messages – is connected to the receptor on the inside of the cell. Whenever a unique body binds to the receptor outside of the cell, a “conformational” change occurs where the positioning of the macromolecule slightly alters and releases the G-protein. This complex process is the same process that cells undergo for nearly 40% of our prescribed medicine. The G-protein coupled receptor plays a colossal role in human health, and I can’t wait to get started in the lab!

Today’s labwork began with the expression of beta-2 adrenergic receptors in insect cells. The cells were placed in a solution that expedites receptor formation. The flasks holding these cells were put in a massive centrifuge – a device that spins vessels at high speeds to separate insoluble particles. We poured out the solution, extracted the cells while stabilizing their pH with a buffer solution, and labelled each of our solution-filled flasks. Dr. Masoudi emphasized that everything in the lab must be labeled. We used a smaller centrifuge (going at 4000 rpm!) to separate the insect cells from the buffer solution. Using ethanol and dry ice (the lab ran out of liquid nitrogen), we flash-froze our vessels and later placed our rack of flasks in a massive freezer. The cells in these flasks will eventually be used when the receptors are needed for X-ray crystallography. After our lunch break, Dr. Masoudi and I went over to a lab-wide meeting where different project leaders explicate the results from the past week. Besides X-ray crystallography, other researchers only a couple doors down use cryogenic electron microscopy to better understand the structures of these receptors.

Everyone in the lab is incredibly kind. One researcher called “Bullet” gave up his set of pipets so I could use them later on in the internship. Dr. Masoudi works with another researcher, Li Yin, who was kind enough to give up her work bench and desk so I could use it for labwork. Overall, the lab’s atmosphere is positive, but what I found to be most surprising is that this space is highly diverse; a large majority of the researchers here are first-generation immigrants. Dr. Masoudi just so happens to be a first-generation Iranian immigrant like my mom! It’s been such a phenomenal experience so far, and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to witness some crucial work in the field of biochemistry. Can’t wait for tomorrow!

Day 1-SAS

Going to SAS today was actually very intriguing. I was just with Thuc and our rep. the entire day, and the topic of discussion was web development. First, we were introduced to the SAS website and all of the things it could do such as sell to clients, teach about the company as a whole, and show ways that SAS helps the community. Then, we were introduced to, and stayed with for the rest of the day, Christiania who was on the web editing team. She edited what was on the website and communicated with many other countries with how to fix problems/ make edits. After explaining how the website works, (which was much more complex that previously thought), Thuc and I actually got to preform tasks that Christiania had to do, and we edited the website by ourselves! It was a very interesting day, and I can’t wait for tomorrow with the Sales and pre-sales day.