BIOL 1610 Signature Assignment

My signature assignment this semester was attending a keynote speaker presentation by

Dr. Annie Isabel Fukushima. Dr. Fukushima is the Director of the Office of Undergraduate

Research (OUR) at the University of Utah. The topic of the presentation was about how less

equitable persons have fewer opportunities to conduct research. Examples of these individuals

may include those who categorize themselves as BIPOC or LGBTQ+. The hypothesis Dr.

Fukushima has as to why these individuals have less opportunities could be attributed to several

factors. A few examples she brought up was racism/marginalization, stereotypes/biases, and

discrimination. These may occur in the classroom or in the field.

Dr. Fukushima is the Director of the OUR at the University of Utah. The OUR’s mission

statement is “to facilitate and promote undergraduate student-faculty collaborative research and

creative works in all disciplines throughout the University of Utah campus through equitable

programming, diverse representation, and social justice”. Dr. Fukushima shared with us personal

testimonials of students who have participated in the OUR program. All the testimonials shared a

common theme in that each person believed they received equal and equitable research

opportunities while being a part of the program. I believe OUR is a very important and helpful

program that can be used by anybody, but especially those in the population(s) stated in the first

paragraph. It allows people from all different representations to gain equal opportunities without

any prejudices in any way towards them.