Zuhair Zaidi

​What does research mean to you? 
Research is a roller coaster. Everything from the excitement you feel when you first step in line to board the ride to the boredom you feel when you realize the huge number of people ahead of you in it. However, regardless of the obstacles or boredom you experience, in the back of your mind, the image of having an exhilarating experience pushes you to stay in line and inch yourself forward to what you know to be one of the most memorable experiences of your life. Research is also the feeling you have when you finally ride the roller coaster. It can be absolute euphoria when going through the loops of a track but can also feel not so fantastic when you’re upside down or amidst a gut-wrenching turn. Despite experiencing such extremes in emotion, you always leave a research lab or project yearning for more as a result of a deep innate desire to discover and to revel in the process of discovery, regardless of how painful or euphoric it may feel. 
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Tell us about your journey.
I initially began research in the Kramer Lab back as a high school student in the STARS program at UT Southwestern. During this experience, I gained an initial understanding of the research process and felt a keen desire grow within me to use research as a means to discover healing and relief for patients in the future. This desire spurred me forward in completing another two stints at the Kramer Lab as a part of the SURF program in the summers of 2018 and 2019. These experiences were incredibly influential in solidifying my desire to pursue scientific research in my future career. Finally, as a Green Fellow, I was able to delve into projects and experiences that were different from the initial experiences I had in prior summers while still in the Kramer lab. I worked on a project mostly involving computers rather than wet lab techniques, where I felt a sense of satisfaction in being able to experience what the scientific research process looked like from both the bench and computational sides. 

My research stints at UT Southwestern have been incredibly transformative towards my future career as a scientist. The camaraderie, collaboration, and bleeding-edge research I experienced at this institution had me engaged and yearning for more, and I hope to use the values and experiences I gained during my duration here to fuel my motivation and success in my future as a scientist. 

What was your favorite part about the program?
The autonomy and collaboration I had when working on my project. Throughout my experience, I always felt I was in the perfect environment to explore ideas and opportunities on my own while also having the comfort of a safety net and mentorship in the fellow lab mates I had in the lab. I loved being able to complete my own project and gain expertise on something I could call my own while also being able to leverage the expertise and experiences of others to help ensure my project was the best it could possibly be.

What was the biggest thing you learned from the program?
Accepting failure and picking myself up when things seemed rough. On more occasions than I bear to admit, I experienced soul-crushing failures that seemed insurmountable at the moment. Things like losing 120 hours’ worth of work in a matter of seconds. Despite these bottlenecks, I found a sense of comfort from my fellow lab mates who reminded me that failure is an everlasting feature of the scientific process, and without it, there is no sense of triumph when you finally come to an astonishing discovery or complete a difficult procedure. It is resilience and tenacity that I learned in my experience as a Green Fellow, and I believe these qualities will be ever useful not only in my career as a scientist but my life as a whole.

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Advice for Future Green Fellows

Make mistakes. Feel free to...within reason. Learn how you recover from failure and be persistent in seeing how you can do better the next time. Also, don’t take yourself too seriously. Oftentimes when I go to a gym, I see the statement “leave your ego at the door”. I think this statement should also be plastered in front of research labs because the scientific process is just as capable of humbling you as it is in glorifying you.