Gautam Malhotra, a fifth-year M.D./Ph.D. candidate, is a veteran of these international student research forums. He was one of several students to represent UNMC at last year’s edition, in Tokyo. And it was an amazing experience.
This year it’s UNMC that hosts the International Student Research Forum and Joint Research Symposium today through Thursday.
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For the past eight years, UNMC students have gotten to build relationships with international colleagues at the International Student Research Forum. |
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“More and more, our world is shrinking,” Malhotra said. “But science has always been global. It’s based in fact. Whatever is true here is true there. And so there’s always been this exchange. Published data is read everywhere, which allows people all over the world to be working on the same problem.
“But now we are able to really get together, and meet, and collaborate.”
He’s excited to present his work, and to see other students’ presentations. But it’s the personal connections, with young scientists from around the world, which really garner his enthusiasm, heading into the event.
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Last year, Malhotra said, the Tokyo forum’s student hosts took everyone out on the town. This year, it’s America — baseball at Werner Park.
Students are students. They will hang out.
And in between presentations, in off-the-books conversations, connections are made.
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“This is unique in the international sense, that you get to make these connections and network all over the world,” Malhotra said. “And who knows. These people are going to be the scientists of the future. So these connections you make now may be very useful to you later on.”
Now budding scientists at UNMC know people in their field in Japan. Or Australia. Or China. Now, years down the line, they can make a phone call or shoot an email.
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As the years go by, these students who meet this week in Omaha will build on each other.
Over breakfast, or bonding at a baseball game, or maybe even at a bar in the Old Market, late, late at night, they’ll promise to do so.
“You want to make these types of international connections because you want to establish yourself as a powerhouse of research,” Malhotra said. “And we really are. We have a lot of research going on here. And so to partner with these people is a very good strategic move.”