Today was Jason's thesis defense. It was the first (and last) one during my time in lab this summer, and it was interesting to see how the Ph.D process concludes. Jason came in to lab today dressed up in his suit, and at 1:00, the entire lab filtered downstairs to meet him in the Geary auditorium for his thesis presentation. Also attending were members from other labs on our floor, as well as Jason's family and friends. The talk lasted until 2:15, and he did a great job summarizing all of his work into that period of time, though his heavy use of bioinformatics was a little above my level of expertise (Dr. Bouchard even commented that he learned many new techniques as a result of Jason's work).
After the talk, Jason met with the five members of his thesis committee (including Dr. Bouchard), who questioned him while he defended his thesis. This process was supposed to last until 3:00, at which point there would be a celebration upstairs.
We set up for this party while we waited for the defense to come to an end. We hung streamers and decorations from the conference room where lab meeting is normally held and set up the food. However, we had to wait until 3:45 for Jason and the thesis committee to conclude their meeting and for the party to begin. Dr. Bouchard made a toast while Nikhil and I stood there with no champagne in our hands. The food was pretty good, and there was pizza, salad, and cake from all different places in Philadelphia.
Setting up for the party
Jason will still be in lab for a few months to finish up some work, but tomorrow should be my last day. I plan on running my final experiment tomorrow, assuming my transfection went well today. It's been a long ten weeks in lab, but I'm excited to see what results I get tomorrow!
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