Schmid College students continue to expand their presence in the professional world through internship opportunities—this time with University of California Irvine’s Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (MIND).

UCI MIND is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Designated Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, and it uses stem cells to develop models for Alzheimer’s disease. Schmid College and UCI MIND have had a productive collaboration over the past two years, with five current students currently interning at the foundation.

Students at the Disease Research Center


Casey Tiefenthaler

Casey Tiefenthaler is one of those students, interning part-time during the academic year and full-time over the summer. Tiefenthaler assists in animal surgery and conducts behavioral tests, among other responsibilities. He recently completed 3D reconstructions of the corpora callosa in 24 mice; the corpus collosum controls eye movement and communicates between the left and right sides of the brain.

“The goal is to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms that lead to cognitive decline after receiving multiple head traumas,” he says.

Lauren Camargo, a biochemistry and molecular biology major, enjoys the control of her job even while working as a graduate student’s assistant. She says, “I am given a huge amount of freedom and responsibility, specifically when I am responsible for training other undergraduate research assistants.”

Timothy Lee does Disease research

Timothy Lee performing research

Other students working at UCI MIND include Timothy Lee and Rachelle Yelin. Lee studies the levels of severity of Alzheimer’s, works on stem cell treatment and attends autopsies and brain cuts. Yelin passes cell lines to keep them alive, plates the cells to prepare them for experiments and plans to begin mice experiments very soon.

For other examples of Schmid College student internships, click here.