Mauricio Torres
Universidad Industrial de Santander
Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia.
Dear Smithsonian Latino Initiatives Fund members,
I was just another "laboratory mouse" (as the local TV Channel News said). But when, after months of suspense, I knew that I was going to be part of the RTP 2004 team, everything changed. I called my mother and very soon it was news in my family, even some relatives I never talk to called to congratulate me. Then I wrote to the professors who provided my recommendation letters, to acknowledge their help. One of them is my advisor in whose laboratory I am working on my final project. Very soon all the people in my laboratory were telling me how happy they were about the news. A few days later, my advisor gave a speech about research for the new science career students and commented on my recent success in obtaining the internship. Someone from the university press office that was at the conference, considered the story newsworthy, and the press office wrote an article about my internship for the university newspaper. Then they gave the information to the local city newspaper and the regional office of the national newspaper, both of which ran stories. Such coverage was unexpected, but there were still more. One day I was working in the laboratory when a reporter from the local TV channel called to say he wanted to interview me. He arrived three hours later, made a videotape, and I was on the TV News that night! The strangest aspect of this entire fuss is that most of the people, even from the media, did not know what the Smithsonian or the National Museum of Natural History were or what they signified for a biology student, but everybody understood that I was being given the best research opportunity an undergraduate student could have. I was no longer just another laboratory mouse, I was a Colombian biology student being given a great chance.
For me the RTP was a way to personally check what I had before just seen in books (and also to meet some of the book authors). It was a way to condense all the information of my undergraduate career in order to finally obtain a sense of really how to do science. I had the opportunity to see high level scientists "in action" in their laboratories and offices, to meet them at lunch, to see them talking with colleagues about an interesting issue, to perceive sometimes a tired or sad or shy scientific face, to attend many presentations where "the authority" on a subject was telling about his or her life experience and research perspectives, to observe the effort of a scientist to show to an apathetic audience that what he or she does is interesting, and much more. I also could spend time with some of the staff researchers, sharing stories about things that happened while fishing or talking about the culture of my country. I'm telling all this to explain that I learned this summer that high level scientist are real people, and if they can do great things in science, then I guess people like me can too.
The first tangible product of this great experience is the article that my advisor Richard Vari and I are preparing, describing a new species of freshwater fish from Colombia. The entire process, from a jar full of strange fishes to the submission of a manuscript has been very exciting to me, and with the support of the great professional that my advisor is, it was also edifying. He has treated me as a developing colleague, giving me confidence to express my points of view during interesting discussions. We also have had time to talk about career options in Neotropical ichthyology, which have gave me a better foundation on which to plan for my upcoming graduate studies.
Thank you very much dear members of the Smithsonian Latino Initiatives Fund for giving South American students the opportunity to be part of the RTP.
Sincerely,
Mauricio Torres
Research Training Program, 2004