Spending the summer looking at MRI images and helping medical researchers isn’t your typical high school summer activity.
However Chestermere High School Grade 11 student Jordan Hassett is doing just that after he was selected to participate in the University of Calgary’s Alberta Innovates Heritage Youth Researcher Summer (HYRS) Program.
“I was pretty ecstatic,” said Hassett of his selection for the program.
Hassett has been placed in a neuroscience lab, a placement he wanted because it’s the most complicated field he could think of.
“It’s awesome,” he said, “There’s no better way I can think of to spend my summer.”
His job in the lab is to compare MRI scans of the brains of infants who have had strokes either just before birth or just after birth with the scans of infants who have not had a stroke.
They are comparing to see how much the brain restructures itself after a trauma, like a stroke, occurs.
Hassett hasn’t been let down with how challenging the work is. He said that it is actually even harder than he had expected.
“The day I showed up I was given some readings to do,” he said, “I went home and my brain hurt.”
The experience has galvanized Hassett’s future career decisions.
“I think this program helped me decide that I want to do medical science,” he said.
Specifically, Hassett would like to pursue a career as a researcher.
He has had a long-standing interest in the sciences and the world around him.
“For the longest time I’ve been completely fascinated by everything around me,” he said, “life in general is crazy it’s impossible to understand how everything works.
“Science is the only way that really makes things make sense.”
The HYRS program has been running since the early 2000s and sees high school students who are interested in pursuing a career in medicine and biomedical sciences placed in research labs for the six-week program.
The program gives the students a hands on look at what a career in medical sciences is like.
