#iamExeter: Jonny Civitarese ’26

What was your internship program?

I was a research intern at UNH’s Hubbard Center for Genome Studies.

What did your day-to-day look like during your program? Was it fast-paced meetings? Research-based? Give us a glimpse into a typical day.

We had meetings every Monday morning. In each meeting, we would present each of the projects and their progress for that week. The meetings were often fast-paced, and you had to be prepared to share specifics of your progress from the week prior. Afterwards, my days would vary. While I was working on my own project, I would spend a lot of time independently working on my code or a population genetics report. I would also help out with the lab portions of other projects.

How did you find your way to this program? What pulled you to this industry?

At the time of applying, I was taking BIO586: Molecular Genetics and was hoping to take one of the 600-level research courses in the spring. I had a bit of prior research experience in a professional chemistry lab the summer prior, and I really enjoyed that experience and was hoping to build on it. Ms. Rankin, the internship coordinator and my genetics teacher, encouraged me to apply since it was close to home and would build on my interest in genetics and genomics! I knew I wanted to go into research because I’ve seen firsthand how impactful novel research, biological and otherwise, can be.

In what ways did Exeter prepare you for this internship? Was there a specific course or mentor that helped you get ready for your experience?

I think Exeter prepared me for my internship in many different ways, so many that I couldn’t name them all in a five-page essay.

One of the main ways was collaboration. Going from collaborating with my classmates in Harkness to collaborating with my colleagues in meetings felt like an almost seamless transition. Just as your colleagues rely on you to finish your specific assignments so that they can get their work done, your classmates rely on you to do your assignments and participate so that they can learn from you.

I think BIO650: Malaria best prepared me for this experience. You have to apply for the class and only a select few students are accepted. It’s not a requirement to apply for the internship, but it taught me many of the bioinformatic and lab skills that I found very helpful in my internship. We even toured the Hubbard Center for Genome Studies in my Malaria class, so I got to meet my future colleagues months before starting my internship!

What was your biggest takeaway from your experience or from the industry you were a part of?

Problem-solving is EXTREMELY important. I can’t stress that enough. I learned that firstly, you will run into a lot of problems, and secondly, you often may not know how to solve them.

When I was working on my own project, I must have run into problems with my code at least 100 times over the course of my internship, which would sometimes take me hours to fix (even if it was adding an extra space, which actually has the capability of messing up numerous lines of code). I remember one time we were trying to extract DNA from a protist, but unfortunately, there wasn’t much research about specific extraction methods for protists, and so we spent multiple days trying extraction techniques for plants, bacteria, and numerous different kinds of eukaryotes until we found one that worked. You definitely have to lean on your colleagues.

How has this experience shaped your perspective on your future career path? Did it help you understand whether this is an industry you’d want to pursue long term?

It showed me that I absolutely want to work in labs while I’m in college. Additionally, I learned about working in academia and the biotechnology industry, as HCGS was, in my view, a mix of both. They have their own projects, publish papers, and work under a university, however, another major way of accumulating revenue is sequencing for other lab projects outside of the university. I learned that academic research can often be slow-paced and methodical, whereas having assignments from other labs (some of which are at major research universities such as Johns Hopkins) can speed things up quite a bit. I think I’m more suited for a faster-paced environment.