There is a lot of advice telling students looking for research to “find a PI whose work interests you.” That’s good advice, but it can feel impossible when you’ve only taken intro bio/chem courses and every faculty page is full of terms you’ve never seen before.

My biggest advice: you do not need to know your perfect research niche before you start. Doing research is one of the ways you figure out what you like. When I first looked for research, I had taken intro neuroscience and basically knew:

• Neural mechanisms/behavior seemed cool.
• CRISPR and gene editing seemed cool.
• I was interested in schizophrenia and psychosis.
• I wanted bench experience.
• I was okay working with mice but didn’t really want to work with fish or flies (for no reason in particular).
• I was more interested in understanding how the brain worked than studying whether a particular intervention worked in a population.

That was pretty much it. I eventually joined a lab studying the impact of aging on dopaminergic circuitry involved in familiarity memory. It wasn’t what I ultimately wanted to pursue, but it taught me an enormous amount. I learned bench techniques, how to read scientific literature critically, how to think through a research question and design an experiment, and, for one lab, what doing research actually looked like.

I also learned things I didn’t like. I didn’t want to keep working with animals, and that while I enjoyed basic science research, I was eager to do research that had a more direct impact on population health. All of this information was incredibly valuable.

So how do you figure out what might interest you?

Don’t only ask, “What disease is interesting?” There are several other important dimensions of research that could give you clues about where your interests lie.

Ask yourself:

• What level of research interests me? Molecules and cells? Organs and biological systems? Individual patients? Communities? Entire healthcare systems?
• Who or what do I want to work with? Cells, animals, patients, medical records, large datasets, clinicians, or communities?
• Do I like hands-on laboratory work? If you enjoy experiments, procedures, chemistry, microscopy, or working at the bench, basic or translational science might appeal to you.
• Do I like working with people? Clinical, qualitative, implementation, or health services research may involve much more interaction with patients, clinicians, or communities.
• Do I like numbers and data? Epidemiology, computational biology, biostatistics, imaging, and many types of health services research can be highly quantitative.
• Do I like interviews, experiences, and stories? Qualitative research might be worth exploring.
• Do I want to understand why something happens, or whether something works in the real world? Those questions can lead you toward very different kinds of research.
• Am I interested in a particular disease, population, question, or method? Any one of those can be your entry point.

You don’t need to know the formal name of the field yet. Maybe you just know memory is fascinating. Or mental health. Or genetics. Or that coding sounds much more appealing than pipetting. Those are enough clues to start.

Get exposure.

Pay attention to which lectures make you want to learn more. Look through the upper-level course catalog at your university. If you could take another five years of classes, which courses would you actually want to take? Which would you not? Again, knowing what you don’t like is just as helpful information as what you do like. 

To get more exposure, you can also:

• Read popular science books 
  • Goodreads medicine booklist: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/medicine
  • Goodreads science booklist: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/science
• Skim journal articles in top journals (NEJM, JAMA, Nature, The Lancet) 
• Watch TED Talks or scientific lectures online.
• Attend departmental seminars or research talks at nearby universities.
• Look for medical school or hospital grand rounds that are open to students or the public.
• Attend student research symposia.
• Watch webinars hosted by universities, hospitals, scientific organizations, or research institutes.
• Ask professors how they became interested in their own field.

And when you’re reading something difficult, ask yourself: Am I confused but curious, or am I confused and incredibly bored? You are going to be confused either way when you’re starting out, so curiosity is the more useful signal.

Then actually find researchers.

Once you have 2–3 broad areas you’d be happy exploring:

University → Department → Faculty → Lab → Recent research

Look at universities, hospitals, medical schools, and research institutes near you and search broadly across departments. Someone doing neuroscience research could be in neuroscience, psychiatry, neurology, psychology, pharmacology, genetics, biology, etc.

I have found faculty profiles are a great first filter. You’ll probably click some and find yourself thinking it sounds cool. Others, you might read and find less interesting. That gut instinct is legitimately enough to start narrowing things down.

Once you find someone interesting, you can look at their lab website and skim a few recent papers. You do not need to understand the whole paper. I usually looked at:

• Abstract
• Last paragraph of the intro
• Figures
• Conclusion/discussion

I was basically trying to figure out:

1. What does this lab study?
2. What methods do they use?
3. What are they working on recently?

If you can say, “They’re broadly studying X using Y, and I’d like to learn more about that,” you probably understand enough to decide whether to email them. Also, once you find one interesting researcher, look at their collaborators and coauthors. One PI can lead you to a whole network of people doing related work.

AI can help here too. You can ask something like: “I’m near X University and interested in psychosis, gene editing, and neuroscience. What departments or researchers should I investigate?” Or paste an abstract in and ask for a plain-English explanation. Just verify everything on the actual university/lab website.

And remember: your first project probably won’t be your forever field.

I don’t think this is the case for most people. Since that first neuroscience lab, I’ve done research involving mental health services, serious mental illness, sexual violence prevention, implementation science, health policy, health civic engagement, decision-making, and more. Every project has helped me figure out what kinds of questions and methods I actually enjoy. You don’t need enough scientific knowledge to pick your lifelong research field. You just need enough curiosity to pick the next thing you want to learn more about.

To read the full blog, see: https://www.admitmd.com/post/how-to-get-a-research-role-finding-research-that-interests-you

And please let me know if you have other questions about finding or getting involved in research!