About the role
The Base Pair internship program was founded in 1992 as a biomedical research mentorship program that paired University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) faculty with high school students and educators from the Jackson Public School District (JPSD). This program now offers JPSD students a bona fide biomedical research experience under the guidance of UMMC faculty researchers. Additionally, Base Pair has generated two corollary programs, the Rural Biomedical Initiative (RBI) which offers a template for inquiry-based, hands-on curricula for rural high schools, and the Student Oriented Academic Research (SOAR) which is a two-year science curriculum focused on locally-generated student research and adaptable to individual school resources. Base Pair has made a significant and positive impact on science education, not only locally, but throughout Mississippi and the southeastern United States as well.