Bea Lab (UIC College of Engineering and Medicine) is actively looking for three positions listed below:
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Oppurtunity 1: Nursing Undergraduate Research Assistants
Call for Applications for Nursing Undergraduate Research Assistants
The BeaLab is seeking volunteer Undergraduate Research Assistants (URAs) in Nursing to work with Dr. Peñalver Bernabé and her team on ongoing research studies. This clinical research could increase you communication skills with patients and can expand careers in nursing & beyond. A key focus of our team is mental health in pregnant and postpartum patients, as well as other perinatal conditions (e.g., preterm birth) with special emphasis in the relationships between hormonal, immune and neurological systems, and the gut microbiome. These complex interactions have been coined as the “brain-gut axis”. The brain-gut axis is a new promising avenue to treat mental health disorders using probiotics.
URAs will assist with:
- Patient recruitment, screening, consenting, and compensating research participants in clinical
- settings
- Processing blood samples for immune, metabolomics and proteomics assays
- Processing stool samples for next-generation sequencing, i.e., 16S rRNA and shotgun
- metagenomics analysis, and metabolomics analysis.
- Processing urine and other biological samples
- Perform electro-encephalograms using a portable device
- Managing participant and sample tracking in both REDCap and UIC BOX
- Data entry and database management
Eligibility
- Sophomores or juniors enrolled at UIC in the Nursing program (exceptions may be made on a case-bycase basis for seniors).
- Outstanding communicator and bedside manners- demeanor & confidence is essential
- Comfortable with EPIC for navigating patient appointment schedules and medical records.
- The student should be in good academic standing with a strong GPA (3.0 or above) and have an interest in women’s health.
Preference may be given to students in the Honors College and/or students who have completed courses in research methods or statistics.
- Student should be self-motivated, well organized and display a high attention to detail.
- Able to commit to a minimum of 10 hours per week.
- Able to be on campus at least one day a week.
- Ideally trained phlebotomies.
- Qualify for Federal Student Aid
If you are interested, please complete the attached application form and send, along with your resume, to Beatriz Peñalver Bernabé at penalver@uic.edu AND lab manager, Brianna David, at bdavid8@uic.edu.
Opportunity 2: Undergraduate Research Assistant
via Bea Lab (UIC College of Engineering and Medicine):
Call for Applications for Undergraduate Research Assistants (URA)
Bea Lab is looking for an undergraduate research assistant (URA) to work with Dr. Penalver Bernabe and her team on an ongoing research study for a compensated position. A key focus of our team is mental health in pregnant and postpartum people, with special emphasis on the relationships between hormonal, immune, and neurological systems and the gut microbiome.
This particular project is a substudy involving the use of portable electroencephalograms (EEGs). The goal of this project to understand whether the brain activity predictive power of a common cognitive test and mental health is similar for a 5-channel and a 16-channel EEG
The URA will assist with:
- Patient recruitment, screening, and consenting research participants.
- Obtaining several EEG recordings with the patient at rest and performing various memory activities.
- Obtaining survey information from participants.
If the URA expresses interest, they may also assist with:
- Data cleaning of signals collected.
- Analysis of EEG signals in EEGlab (MATLAB) or Python.
- Statistical analysis of correlations between signals observed and results of the various surveys administered to the patient.
Eligibility
- Undergraduate student at UIC in good academic standing with a strong GPA (3.0 or above).
- Knowledge of MATLAB and/or Python is preferred.
- Student should have an interest in women’s mental health, with a background in neuroscience,
psychology, or engineering
- Preference may be given to students in the Honors College and/or students who have completed
courses in research methods or statistics.
- Student should be self-motivated and display a high attention to detail.
- Qualify for Federal Aid.
- Willing to work 10-20 hrs a week.
If you have questions or want to apply, please contact Andrea Ohk (aohk2@uic.edu). Those applying, please attach your resume to your email.
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Oppurtunity 3: Data Manager
via Bea Lab (College of Engineering and Medicine):
Call for Applications for Undergraduate Research Assistants
BeaLab is seeking Undergraduate Research Assistants (URAs) to work with Dr. Peñalver Bernabé and her team on ongoing research studies. This position is compensated.
A key focus of our team is mental health in pregnant and postpartum people, with special emphasis on the relationships between hormonal, immune, and neurological systems, and the gut microbiome. These complex interactions have been coined as the “brain-gut axis”. The brain-gut axis is a new promising avenue to treat mental health disorders using probiotics.
URAs will assist with the data entry and database management of:
- Patient recruitment, screening and consenting research participants in clinical settings
- Participant questionnaire progress
- Participant biological sample tracking
- Participant compensation tracking
All the above will be managed in both REDCap and UIC Box (Microsoft Office, PDF).
Eligibility:
- First-year students, sophomores, or juniors enrolled at UIC (exceptions may be made on a case-by-case basis for seniors).
- Good communicator
- The student should be in good academic standing with a strong GPA (3.0 or above) and have an interest in mental health.
- Preference may be given to students in the Honors College and/or students who have completed courses in research methods or statistics.
- Student should be self-motivated, display high attention to detail and be well-organized.
- Able to work 10-20 hours per week.
- Qualify for Federal Student Aid
If you are interested, please complete the attached application form (see form below post under Additional Resources) and send it, along with your resume, to Beatriz Peñalver Bernabé at penalver@uic.edu AND lab manager, Brianna Davíd, at bdavid8@uic.edu.
