The Summer Health Academic Research Experience in Communicative Sciences and Disorders (SHARE-CSD) is a six-week summer research program led by CSD faculty Sudha Arunachalam and Susannah Levi. Launched in 2022 and set to run for five years, the program brings twelve undergraduate students from across the United States to New York University (NYU) each summer to participate in activities designed to develop skills in:
- Research
- Academic and career preparation, and
- Community building and mentoring
Funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), the program prepares participants for success as graduate students and researchers. Students take part in research projects that culminate in a symposium where they present their work to NYU faculty, students, and peers from the prior year’s SHARE-CSD cohort. The program covers travel, housing, and a meal plan for participants, who also receive a stipend to support their stay in New York.
Activities during the summer experience include:
- Lab placements, in which students work with faculty and PhD student mentors on a six-week research project that includes a literature review, data analysis, and preparation and presentation of an original research poster.
- Workshops on critical research skills including: reading journal articles, literature review and annotated bibliography, R skills for data analysis, and how to present research
- Career-building workshops on how to apply for grad school, how to write a CV, and how to navigate academia.
- Weekly lab tours in which students observe research from labs in CSD and related fields such as psychology and linguistics.
- Community-building activities such as trivia night, museum tours, and community time.
An annual external evaluation of SHARE-CSD has consistently revealed an overwhelmingly positive experience for participants, all of whom have expressed satisfaction with the program. Most report that SHARE-CSD has:
- Exposed them to career possibilities in CSD that they might not have otherwise known about and helped them to confirm, refine, or align their career interests
- Helped them become more confident in their research abilities across a range of research skills, including but not limited to defending arguments, analyzing and interpreting data, oral presentation, and reading journal articles.
[The program directors] want us to succeed no matter what we end up doing, whether it's CSD related or not. And I just know they're always there for us. And I think that's just amazing.”
100% of students reported that they were satisfied with their experience in the program. Beyond the six weeks spent in New York City, participants also have continued access to mentorship and support as alumni of the SHARE program. Each year:
SHARE student and PhD student mentor working on a research poster.
- Circa half of the students enrolled in the summer program travel to professional conferences to present research findings alongside professors Arunachalam and Levi. Alumni have presented at the Acoustical Society of America, the Cognitive Development Society, the Society for Research in Child Development, among others.
- All of the students are invited to attend the following year’s SHARE-CSD Research Symposium at NYU, where they interact with the new participants and rekindle their sense of cohort and their relationships with NYU mentors.
Participants have also gone on to enroll in Master's programs in CSD and related programs such as psychology and counseling, to co-author papers on their SHARE-CSD research that were published in peer-reviewed journals, and obtain paid research positions in science labs. Two former participants have even gone on to be employed as coordinators for the SHARE CSD program.