Bowie State Honors Student Headed to Harvard Medical School for Summer Internship

Chris Geo Provido Plans to Study Immunology

 

MEDIA CONTACT: Jonathan Saxon, jsaxon@bowiestate.edu, 301-860-3607

(BOWIE, Md.) – A Bowie State University honors student is headed to Harvard University’s medical school for a prestigious summer internship.

Chris Geo Provido, a junior biology major, will take part in the Summer Honors Undergraduate Research Program (SHURP), a ten-week research internship dedicated to providing underrepresented minority college students an opportunity to gain training and mentorship in scientific research.

Provido says his acceptance was “quite a shock” given that the decision process normally takes a couple months to finalize, but Harvard reached out to him just a couple of weeks after the February application deadline. But with his prior research experience at University of Virginia’s medical school plus the work he’s done while at Bowie State, Provido felt he did the work to position himself for inclusion in this year’s SHURP cohort.

“I was just as qualified as other students from competitive places,” said Provido. “I’ll be working with the best of the best, both with professors and like-minded scholars.”

Provido will be conducting immunology and genomics research on proteins involved in the body’s immune response and will present his work at the Leadership Alliance National Symposium in Connecticut at the end of his internship. He’s looking forward to learning from some of the top researchers in the nation as he works towards his goal of becoming a university professor.

“We’ll have access to some of the best researchers worldwide,” said Provido. “I’ll be able to interact with these individuals and learn from their seminars and lectures.”

Provido had his choice of summer programs to choose from after getting acceptances from Yale University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California (Berkeley) and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. But Harvard’s quick response coupled with their readiness to accept and prepare applicants for the program steered Provido to take his talents to Cambridge for the summer.

“It was an easy choice,” said Provido. “They had everything prepared the minute I had seen my acceptance. This told me they knew what they were looking for. They were really interested in having me and the other scholars they chose.”

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Bowie State University (BSU) is an important higher education access portal for qualified persons from diverse academic and socioeconomic backgrounds, seeking a high-quality and affordable public comprehensive university. The university places special emphasis on the science, technology, cybersecurity, teacher education, business and nursing disciplines within the context of a liberal arts education. For more information about BSU, visit bowiestate.edu.