The Harvard Science Research Conference was held from October 19 to 20, 2024 by the Harvard Undergraduate Research Association (HURA) to introduce high school students to research. On the first day, Dr. Christiano Alves and Dr. Mathias Risse presented to the students about their work with genome editing, the practice of changing living DNA. Dr. Alves is a neuroscientist committed to genome editing in the context of rare neurological diseases, while Dr. Risse is focused on the ethical aspect of CRISPR, a heavily debated tool that can alter DNA in a living organism. Students also heard from Dr. Sharon-Lise T. Normand, a professor of health care policy and biostatistics at Harvard, before attending a lecture on either space colonization or electric vehicles. The second half of the first and second days focused on the Innovation Challenge. Each year, HURA chooses a relevant scientific problem in America, and every student is organized into randomized groups to create an innovative and effective solution to the challenge. This year, the assignment was to solve one of the many factors impacting national parks, such as overcrowding or invasive species. My group decided to solve the problem of invasive species by introducing a type of plant called Juncus, and another group used coding and AI to detect natural gas leaks near parks. The Harvard Science Research Conference was a wonderful way to learn more about today’s scientific sphere and get hands-on experience researching to confront a critical issue.
The image above is a group photo of every participant in the 2024 HSRC conference.