Howard Garrison Advocacy Fellow

Andrew Ramirez, PhD

Andrew Ramirez is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

Describe your interest in participating in the program:
Ramirez: As a child of Mexican immigrants and a first-generation college student, I have been extremely involved in science and engineering advocacy for communities like mine. During my undergraduate years at the University of California, Davis, I was a lead mentor for the 2-week summer bridge program Leadership in Engineering Advancement, Diversity and Retention (LEADR) for over two years. With LEADR, I was a lead mentor where I facilitated workshops for obtaining research opportunities, attending free tutoring, and establishing study habits for success as a first-generation college student. 

During my PhD, I continued my advocacy work by serving as Treasurer for the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics & Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) and as Director of Information Management for the First-Generation Graduate Student Council, both of which focused on building community for STEM and first-generation graduate students. In these roles, I managed budgets, organized events based on student interest, and promoted discussions between the student population and university leadership. In this role, I helped institutionalize a scholarship for first-generation graduate students and strategically built partnerships across the university. This included receiving invitations when making policy decisions involving curriculum development, research trainee mistreatment, and student retention. These experiences showed me how to effectively advocate for student funding and cultivate an idea into a tangible initiative; I hope to continue growing these skills through the fellowship. I was unfamiliar with science policy until I attended a panel on science policy this year at the NIH Career Symposium. I was empowered to transition into this space because of the impact of the work. I realized I could pursue my passion for uplifting marginalized communities, improving human health, and impacting research at a larger scale by using my communication, collaboration, and analytical skills. This realization has propelled me to join science policy organizations, such as Scientist Network for Advancing Policy and Engineers & Scientists Acting Locally, connecting me with peers who are passionate about making science more accessible. This fellowship would allow me to build a well-rounded understanding of science policy, develop actionable steps to become more active in my community, and join a group of similarly-minded individuals. It would also allow me to increase my confidence in advocating for legislation, policies, and regulations that align with my values and values of my community. I am eager to leverage my background in order to advance human health through increased funding, increase the underrepresented STEM workforce pipeline, and ensure scientific collaboration between academia, government, and industry. 

Although I have found fulfillment investigating a technical problem through research, I have increasingly felt how important science policy is because it directly affects what scientific research is conducted and who gets to conduct this research. I see the Howard Garrison Advocacy Fellowship as an opportunity to shift my career to learn about how I can contribute to adequate research funding for human health using my interdisciplinary background and problem-solving skills. 

How do you plan to use the knowledge and experience gained through your participation in the Howard Garrison Advocacy Program?
Ramirez: I am interested in participating in the Howard Garrison Advocacy Fellowship to support my transition into a public service career. The fellowship would provide me with opportunities to interact with and learn from stakeholders at the federal level and to better understand the complexities of science policy. FASEB’s annual Capitol Hill Day and Science Policy Symposium are particularly interesting to me because of the opportunity to champion policies of the scientific community and improve my communication skills to non-scientists. With the fellowship’s training and workshops, I would discover which areas of science policy I am most passionate about, how federal agencies implement policies, and how to engage with science policy and advocacy experts. FASEB would provide a professional network for me to grow with, a network that I may not have access to otherwise. The fellowship will serve as an excellent bridge to explore my interests in science policy and prepare me for my application to national and state-based full-time fellowships, including the Science & Technology Policy Fellowship for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and California Council on Science and Technology (CCST). As a new committee member of Science Policy and Advocacy at Rutgers (SPAR), I plan to use my experience to improve how the organization speaks to policymakers, promote advocacy initiatives, and increase science policy engagement in the New Brunswick area. 

Using no more than 250 words, describe your research as you would to a non-scientist.
Ramirez: My research focuses on trying to better understand why some skin cancer patients respond positively to drug treatments, while others don’t. The type of skin cancer I investigate is melanoma, the most deadly type of skin cancer. Melanoma is extremely hard to treat because it develops so close to blood vessels, making it easy to spread throughout the body. I am researching immunotherapies that are used for melanoma patients. Immunotherapies are a type of drug treatment that utilizes the body’s own immune system to kill cancer cells. This is a much better approach to treating cancer as opposed to traditional therapies, such as radiation therapy and chemotherapy, because the use of immunotherapies kills not only cancer cells but also healthy cells. 

Currently, only about 50% of melanoma patients respond positively to immunotherapies called immune checkpoint inhibitors, which force immune cells called T cells into an activated state to kill cancer cells. For individuals who do not respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors, there is an urgent need to create tools to predict treatment response and to identify alternative or combination therapies that could restore drug sensitivity. With my research, I am trying to predict which patients are responsive to immune checkpoint inhibitors by analyzing tumor and lymph node tissues and seeing where immune cells, including T cells, are located throughout the tissue. Identifying where immune cells are located and measuring the genes they express are crucial to understanding their potential to fight cancer. 

Briefly describe any past or present participation in additional career exploration activities, experiences, and/or programs.
Ramirez: Communicating science to a broader audience and teaching the next generation of scientists has been my goal as a scientist/engineer because I want to increase access and understanding for others. The culmination of my experiences has improved my communication skills over time. For example, I have spoken to general audiences without any biological background, such as when I gave an oral Keynote Speech in the Research Symposium at California State University, San Bernardino. As a tutor, graduate teaching assistant, and adjunct professor, I have learned how to tailor how I communicate to different audiences, making science understandable no matter what their prior knowledge was. I hope to continue growing this skill through FASEB. 

To become more accustomed to the issues facing the community and to improve my writing skills, I have joined the Scientist Network for Advancing Policy and Engineers & Scientists Acting Locally as an editor and writer. These opportunities have allowed me to translate my technical writing skills from a scientific audience to a broader audience. In these positions, I focus on causes that are important to me, such as my collaborative work titled “The Maze of STEM Graduate Education”, which highlights recommended policies to address the current difficulty of joining the STEM workforce. These writing experiences have been instrumental to my growth in science policy as I learn about the growing knowledge gap between scientists and the public, and I hope to integrate my experiences as a fellow. 

Andrew Ramirez is a member of Genetics Society of America.