Inspiring Students Through Research Opportunities

Have you ever wondered how a chameleon’s tongue works? This question intrigues Nicole Danos, PhD. A vertebrate comparative anatomist and an assistant professor of biology at the University of San Diego College of Arts and Sciences, Danos studies how living creatures move. From studies with rats to chameleons, Danos’ research poses the question that gets to the root of biology — how do living creatures function?

It is through this research that Danos helps inspire the next generation of biologists.

“At any given time, I have at least four to six students working in my lab,” she says. “Each student gets assigned their own project because I want them to be responsible and feel ownership of part of the bigger project which is, ‘How do animals move?’”

This faculty-student connection is a quintessential part of the USD experience, exemplified through the opportunities available for students to pursue research in disciplines throughout the university. For Danos, this was her motivation in coming to USD.

“I wanted to settle in a place that valued research, but also focused on teaching the basics of science to students,” she says. “What made the department of biology really attractive to me was that research experience is required for all biology majors to graduate from USD, which I thought was extraordinary. In really research-intensive places I’ve been before, opportunities were only available to a few students. I thought it was extremely progressive of USD to have this as part of its curriculum.”

With hands-on experience in a lab setting and opportunities to explore new areas of research, Danos is proud of the problem-solving skills students develop and the confidence they take with them after graduation.

“When students do a research experience in my lab, I’m hoping they will gain confidence in their own abilities to solve problems, because that is what we’re really trying to do,” says Danos. “In today’s world, for someone to have the capacity to take on this type of learning project on their own — and come up with something they can do as a result of it — is a very valuable skill for any person who is leaving a university and entering the job force.”

— Allyson Meyer ’16 (BA), ’21 (MBA)