Outreach

TechGirls is designed to encourage and enable girls from all over the world to pursue careers in science and technology. Our lab created two courses, EMMI and BUDS, that were taught in this program.

Experience in Molecular Modeling and Informatics (EMMI)

Experience in Molecular Modeling and Informatics (EMMI) is a summer research opportunity for high school students interested in bioinformatics and computational biochemistry. In this program, we employ the Experiential Learning Theory, which has been extensively researched as a practice for actively teaching through the dynamic learning cycle driven by problem solving and reflection on the experience.

This program focuses on learning and employing various computational techniques to research in the biochemistry, biophysical, and pharmacological domains at Virginia Tech. Students learn how to successfully utilize computational practices in answering research questions, explore protein structure-function relationships, and contribute new knowledge and data to research projects.

Beyond Understanding Data Science (BUDS)

Through this course, students gain a familiarity with the perceived importance of data and how it is collected. They learn data ethics and data ownership. Students learn techniques in data collection, summary statistics, and scientific communication and connect data to real-world problems. Students also get an introduction to using R to understand coding logic and basic plotting. Students use critical thinking to develop a research project to tackle real-world problems.

Tutorials

Our lab focuses on making high-quality tutorials for all types of learners. We have tutorials in molecular visualization using PyMol and a lecture series called DS4BioMed on our YouTube channel. We also have tutorials in ChimeraX, Schrodinger - Glide, and other computational tools on our lab OSF page. More tutorials coming soon!

Courses Developed and Taught

BCHM 1024 - Introduction to Biochemical Research Skills: A course designed to engage students in curricular and co-curricular learning opportunities by incorporating CURE, exposing students to research skills, integrating University Libraries Advanced Research Skills Certificate Program, and group project work that involves scientific presenting and writing.

BCHM 2994/CMDA 2994 - Undergraduate Research: Integrating students into the Brown Lab through a vigorous computational biochemistry training course.

BCHM 4994/CMDA 4994 - Undergraduate Research: Students complete a research project under Dr. Brown

BCHM 5024 - Computational Biochemistry for Bioinformatics: BCHM 5024 is designed to introduce students to a variety of bioinformatics and computational biology techniques, provide a background of the methodology the techniques are based on, and apply these techniques to real-life examples. By completing 6 assignments and a final project during the course of the semester, students gain exposure to and practice with a variety of bioinformatics techniques, including molecular docking, homology modeling, COPASI (systems modeling), and visualization.

Please feel free to reach out to Dr. Brown for content, guest lectures, or questions!

High School Students

We welcome motivated high school students who are excited to learn about computational biochemistry. We often host EMMI students during the school year and welcome high schoolers to send their resumes if they are interested in being involved in our lab. As a high school student, you will be put through the same computational training program as BCHM/CMDA 2994 students. You will become proficient in most computational techniques including how to make a sequence alignment, molecular visualization, molecular docking, and molecular dynamics. You will also be taught the basics of biochemistry as well as how to navigate a command line.

Health analytics

We host collaborative interdisciplinary events related to health and biological data. Our events so far:

The Health Analytics Summit was hosted on January 10, 2018 (Comprehensive Report).
Data Symposium was hosted on August 24, 2018 (Comprehensive Report)

OTHER

2022 - present - Center for Open Science Ambassador: Our goal is to grow the open science community and provide our tutorials through the OSF.

2021 - present - Awards Committee (2021, 2022) and Awards Chair (2021) for Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing (PEARC)

2021 - present - Student Program Committee, Supercomputing (SC) 2021, 2022 Conference Series (SC21, SC22)