Other Activities

The BCB Curriculum engages students in several events and extracurricular activities throughout the academic year to exchange ideas, receive feedback on their research, and interact informally with BCB faculty and fellow students.

Annual BCB Symposium

The symposium offers the chance for faculty and students to learn more about the research of their colleagues. As BCB is such a broad program with faculty and students from many different campus departments, it is important to know what fellow researchers are discovering as they navigate the field of informatics research. In addition to offering the opportunity for greater understanding among peers, the symposium also exposes students and faculty to resources they may find useful in their own research. Finally, the symposium is also attended by the incoming class of students and allows them to get an idea of the kinds of research going on in the participating labs so they can make informed decisions about where they would like to rotate. Typically held during the fall semester, the most recent symposium consisted of posters given by current BCB students.

Monthly Social Hour Events

BCB students and faculty are invited to monthly gatherings for the opportunity to socialize in an informal manner. Meetings are usually held the first Monday of the month immediately following the colloquium. Reminder announcements go out one week prior to the event and all BCB faculty, students, and staff are invited.

Student-Hosted Friday Seminar Speakers

BCB students invite and host two speakers during both the Fall and Spring Semesters as part of the weekly seminar series sponsored by the Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology and the UNC Department of Genetics. Students are directly involved in inviting and hosting speakers of their choice. The speakers’ visits typically involve a full day of individual or small group meetings with both students and faculty. Students also host an informal lunch on the day of the seminar so they have an opportunity to ask questions and interact with each speaker in a more casual setting. Students benefit tremendously from this close interaction since they have an opportunity to discuss their own work and gain insight from nationally recognized scientists in the fields of bioinformatics and computational biology.