On the first weekend of their stay at UCLA as part of the UCLA Summer Programs for Undergraduate Research SPUR), then-graduate assistant Benny Ng says, "I get the students together and we take the Big Blue Bus to the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica and spend the afternoon there and play." He’s also escorted students to the Getty Museum, Magic Mountain, and a Dodgers game. For the last two summers, he organized salsa dancing at the residence hall.

Of course, recreation is hardly the primary purpose of SPUR, which brings promising undergraduates to UCLA for eight to ten weeks of research. Making them comfortable, however, is part of the plan. Dr. Ng—he received his PhD last summer—points out that some of the SPUR students come to UCLA as graduate students. "We do a good job," he says. "They like Los Angeles, and they want to continue their research."

As a UCLA undergraduate and UC LEADS scholar, Benny experienced two SPUR summer sessions—one at UCLA and one at Berkeley. "From being a participant, I’ve become one of the people helping the Graduate Division run the program." His activities as recreation director are a bonus, his primary concerns being to monitor the SPUR participant housing and to offer academic advice when he can.

His own participation in UC LEADS helped "put me on the road to graduate school," Benny says. "I always wanted to find out if I could learn something more." What he learned more about was naturally occurring protein nano-capsules, known as "vaults." Although their cellular functions are not yet understood, vaults are present in human cells in high numbers—about 10,000 per cell—and their hollow barrel-like structure, with a large internal volume, seems well suited to encapsulation of therapeutic drugs. His vault research project is a collaboration between biochemist Leonard H. Rome, senior associate dean for research at the David Geffen School of Medicine, and his research adviser, professor of chemistry Sarah Tolbert.

Now a lecturer in chemistry at CSU Channel Islands, Dr. Ng sometimes stops at UCLA on his way home. Especially on Thursday evenings, when Laura Saldarriaga, a labmate from Dr. Tolbert’s lab, and other members of the salsa society gather at the Bruin statue to dance.

Published in Winter 2011, Graduate Quarterly