UAH students participate in prestigious HudsonAlpha internship program

Students and BioTrain interns Lauren Richter, Jana Whittle, Jennifer Thomas, and Charity Haggenmaker.

HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology

For eight weeks this summer, four students at UAH will be gaining valuable, real-world experience through the BioTrain internship program at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology.

"Each internship opportunity is crafted with specific skill sets in mind and will benefit students based on their area of interest and concentration," says HudsonAlpha's Coordinator of Educational Outreach Dr. Adam Hott. "BioTrain is designed to support future leaders in the biotechnology field."

Charity Haggenmaker, of Athens, will be interning with the Educational Outreach Department. Lauren Richter, also of Athens, will be interning in Clinical Records with Conversant Bio. Jennifer Thomas, of Arab, will be interning in Production and Quality Control with Diatherix. And Jana Whittle, of Huntsville, will be interning in Computational Research in the G. Cooper Lab.

"BioTrain provides tremendous opportunities to students interested in a career in the biotechnology industry," says Dr. Hott. That includes gaining important knowledge about communication and networking; working alongside HudsonAlpha researchers, faculty investigators, and staff; and collaborating with employees of companies located on the HudsonAlpha and CRP Biotechnology campus.

Since the inception of BioTrain in 2009, more than 1,500 students have applied to the program; of those, 115 have been accepted. And this year alone, only 10 percent of some 300 applicants from across the state successfully secured a BioTrain internship.