Professor’s Scientific Work Sparks Student’s Interest in Research

Arata ’09 presented at international conferences, admitted to competitive graduate program

Michelle Arata always thought she’d be a doctor.

The recent Class of 2009 graduate entered Holy Cross four years ago with med school as her goal, but quickly found her plans changing as she gained experience in the sciences.

“Just from basic freshman year coursework, I began to discover that I really, really enjoyed the work we were doing in the lab,” says Arata, who was a premed biology major. As she progressed, becoming a teaching assistant, she spent even more time in the laboratory, growing more familiar with techniques and practices.

By the time she graduated, Arata had been doing research at Holy Cross since the summer before her junior year, both within the Holy Cross summer science fellowship program, and during the academic years.

Specifically, Arata has worked for the past two years in the lab of Ann Sheehy, assistant professor of biology, who has been studying the human protein APOBEC3G, which has innate anti-HIV abilities.

This collaboration began, Arata recalls, after she hesitantly attended a biology department meeting aimed at promoting research to students.

“I was a teaching assistant at the time” she says, “and even though I enjoyed the lab, I recall being unsure as to whether I really wanted to become a research student. Even when I first sat in that room, I still didn’t think I wanted to do research!”

Soon, however, the department professor began explaining their various projects and research needs, and Arata was struck by the project Sheehy described. “As soon as she was finished speaking I walked right up to her and introduced myself,” says Arata. “We met a couple of times after that, and that summer I began as her student.”

While working in Sheehy’s lab, Arata has had the chance to present her research project at several on- and off-campus symposiums. At the 16th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Montreal, Arata was one of the only undergraduates at the prestigious international conference.

Arata, however, really made her mark this year at the first annual Northeast Undergraduate Research and Development Symposium. The conference, held at the University of New England in Maine, was open to all undergraduate students who had participated in scientific research.

The conference was unique among those that Arata had attended, in that it allowed the students to choose how they wished to present their work: either as a poster exhibit, or as an oral presentation. Arata opted for the latter, which was her first-ever oral presentation in such a forum. At the closing ceremony of the conference, she received the award for best oral presentation, an honor which shocked her.

“Going in,” she says, “I just wanted to be coherent, to do my topic justice. I didn’t even know that awards were going to be given out until we arrived there, so the notion that I might win one — especially for my first time — was totally off my radar screen.”

Arata’s research record has won her more than accolades. She was recently accepted to Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s master’s degree program in biology and biotechnology. The research-based program is extremely selective — out of about one hundred applicants, only four students were selected.

Even more impressive, Arata was granted a merit-based teaching assistantship to attend the program. Aside from free tuition, Arata will also receive stipends for teaching lab classes to WPI undergraduates — a rare distinction for master’s level students. 

Arata hasn’t finalized plans after WPI. She has the option of remaining on for a Ph.D. in the same field, though she may decide to apply her skills outside the academy.

She says: “I’ll answer that question during grad school. I know I love being in the lab, I know I want to stay in some kind of research. I know I love being at the bench.”

By Ross Weisman ’09