Effective Tuesday, March 31, 2020: Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced an extension to the Stay Home, Work Safe order for the Greater Houston area. This new order runs through Thursday, April 30. See link above for complete details.
Stipend information: All GSBS students will continue to receive their stipends as they work remotely. If GSBS faculty/PIs or students have concerns regarding stipends, please contact Pat Bruesch.
The school requires the use of remote access (technologies such as Webex) for all student academic meetings. Instructions may be found at these links: advisory committee meeting, candidacy exam, and thesis defense. To maximize safety, no participants in the meeting should be in the same room. You may also click here to learn about the resources available at the GSBS. We will be flexible about the six-month committee meeting requirement in case students wish to postpone their committee meetings. Specifically, if the meeting is less than 3 months overdue, the meeting may be postponed. Note that May 1 is still the deadline to complete all degree requirements for students who plan to graduate in the spring semester because that is the last day of the term. Contact GSBS Academic Affairs for further details.
Faculty and Student Remote Access Information (advice and support for these tools, please email gsbs.support@uth.tmc.edu)
- Remote Meetings and Collaboration: Webex Meetings, Google Hangouts Meet (UTHealth only. Click here for instructions)
- Online Course Management System: Canvas
- UTHealth Working Remotely Guide
- MD Anderson Working Remotely Guide
Click here to find important links to help students make academic progress while working remotely.
Having a hard time staying productive while working remotely? GSBS Associate Dean Cherilynn Shadding, PhD, and Assistant Director Raquel Salinas, PhD, have compiled tips for working from home.
What can students do when out of the lab?
Activities that GSBS faculty/PIs can assign GSBS students working remotely could include:
- Keeping a daily log of their research/academic activities. This could include what activities you are able to do while working remotely (literature review, writing, analyzing data, etc.) and what activities you are not able to do (wet lab bench work, work that requires equipment/facilities you currently do not have access to; examples: survival analysis on a mouse model, crystallization of a protein, etc.). This information will be valuable for future grant reporting, research/academic progress, etc.
- Set up a regular online meeting or call with your advisor and/or collaborators to discuss things you are doing.
- Conduct literature reviews for your current or potential work*, and/or your dissertation/thesis chapters, etc.
- Practice scientific writing, e.g., proposals, literature reviews, papers, etc.
- Submit unsolicited articles, op-eds, etc. to a scientific journal
- Join in virtual journal clubs
- Take online courses that will benefit the student's training and research. (Note: These courses may not translate to credit at the GSBS. Students should check with their PI before enrolling in an online course.)
- Hone your scientific presentations skills and practice creating interesting presentations (use current data, or data from literature reviews)
- Learn new skills (such as data analysis software or graphics software)
- Plan your experiments for re-entry into the lab
- Work on your career development – conduct informational interviews, research job titles of interest, update your career plan/CV/resume, LinkedIn profile, etc.
- Volunteer your science to help educate the public about COVID-19 and other emerging scientific developments
- Rotation students could review papers written by the PI whose lab they're currently in or those written by faculty they might want to work with in their next rotation.
Students could also implement the activities listed above on their own as they practice social distancing.
Bioinformatic online resources
Shomu’s Bioinformatics with practical