Eden Rauch, a senior in the nutritional sciences, has been doing research under the direction of Professor Peter Nathanielsz at the Laboratory for Pregnancy and Newborn Research in the College of Veterinary Medicine. Charles Harrington/University Photography
Eden Rauch sees her undergraduate research experience at Cornell as a passport to the future.
Rauch has been working with world-renowned Cornell veterinary reproductive physiologist Peter Nathanielsz at the Laboratory for Pregnancy and Newborn Research in the College of Veterinary Medicine since she was a freshman. Now, as a senior in the Division of Nutritional Sciences in the College of Human Ecology, she sees her research on pregnancy as a preview for a medical career.
Simply by asking her biology professor during her freshman year where she could do research if she were interested in pregnancy issues, Rauch was able to gain a position in the lab working on intrauterine growth retardation in the late gestation ovine fetuses. Rauch is studying the endocrine effects of depriving the fetus of oxygen and the resulting birth defects. And the Somerville, N.J., native plans to write an honors thesis on her research. Such research may add insight to the treatment and prevention of intrauterine growth restriction, she says, a condition that can have drastic effects on an individual.
This summer, Rauch was one of 60 Hughes Undergraduate Research Scholars at Cornell, a selective national program sponsored by the Howard Hughes Foundation. Hughes Scholars are selected by the Cornell Division of Biological Sciences on the basis of a student's commitment to research, academic performance, recommendation letters, laboratory sponsor/mentor, a personal statement and an interview. Students who become Hughes Scholars receive $2,500 stipends to cover summer expenses for conducting full-time summer research.
"The program is wonderful because, through bi-weekly seminars and faculty presentations, it has opened my eyes to other fabulous research going on on campus," Rauch said.
With Nathanielsz, the James Law Professor of Reproductive Physiology, as her faculty sponsor and Margaret Ramsay, visiting professor and a practicing British obstetrician, as her mentor, Rauch used the stipend to make headway on her honors thesis research. "I am just getting results now. I really hope to produce something that will be meaningful to the progress of science," she said.
Rauch's medical school applications will be replete examples of her research experience. In addition to her work for academic credit in the veterinary school, last summer Rauch did clinical research in reproductive endocrinology at the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility at Cornell Medical School/New York Hospital. She was an assistant at the In Vitro-Fertilization Center of New Jersey in high school. And in thinking about her career path, Rauch is not overlooking her interest in nutrition.
"Many doctors are not adequately trained in nutrition. Nutrients may have a lot to do with the treatment and prevention of disease and it is important and fascinating to see that connection," she said.
Rauch's life is not filled only by research, though. She is a member of Kappa Omicron Nu National Honor Society and the Golden Key National Honor Society, and she has managed to balance making the dean's list with sorority life and volunteering with the One-to-One Outreach Program a big-brother, big-sister-type program sponsored by the Ithaca Youth Bureau.