Why Us? Skills/Competencies Gained Basic laboratory techniques Using micropipettes Polymerase chain reaction Agarose gel electrophoresisx Soft skills Time management Collaboration/teamwork Oral presentation Scientific writing Synthetic biology techniques Plasmid design and assembly Cloning – Golden Gate Assembly Transformationx Compiling research Oral presentations Written lab reports Poster presentations Students presenting their research at the 2025 Undergraduate Research Forum. Student Testimonials “As a freshman, being in Microbe Hackers taught me a lot of valuable skills early on. It has helped me succeed in outside research opportunities and also helped me improve my time management. Being a mentor is very rewarding, and I’ve made so many friends in my 3 years here too – it’s a great community!” – Kashvi Singh, Sp2023 “Microbe Hackers helped me feel confidence in my lab skills which I’ve applied to other research. I have loved getting the opportunity to mentor freshman. Lastly I’ve made some of my closest friends here!” – Megan Valle, Sp2023 “It’s a great lab to learn the fundamentals of synthetic biology. I really love how supportive and encouraging the mentors are. They have been through the course before and are always willing to help.” – Alexander Vatchev, Sp2025 “The mentors are really nice! I also met one of my closest friends working together on the Cyanobacteria project.” – Sarah Douah, Sp2025 MH4Life: Graduating Senior Mentors 2024
