Kelley Bethoney 2002

Kelley Bethoney , NU Class of 2002, is currently participating in the research project, Curriculum Improvement in Practice-Based Biology Program Using Student ePortfolios, funded by the National Science Foundation. She is a member of a panel of NU faculty, outside faculty, graduate students, and C-op employers who are reviewing student works according to established performance rubrics. One of the principal investigators for this study is Professor Kostia Bergman of the Biology Department in the College of Arts and Sciences.

To read more about this project, please click here. To contact Professor Bergman, please click here.

What Kelley Bethoney has to say about NU's Co-op Program

Kelley recently reported "I am absolutely certain that would not be the scientist I am today without the valuable foundation I received at Northeastern University."

As a graduate student at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Kelley Bethoney realizes how valuable and fundamental her Co-op experiences at Northeastern were to her future career as a scientist. Kelley came to Northeastern in 1997, focusing her studies in biochemistry, a demanding major, providing an in-depth education on the link between biology and chemistry in living processes. At Northeastern, Kelley was able to put her classroom knowledge into practical use within laboratory settings both in private industry and in academic science. These experiences were instrumental in Kelley's decision to pursue her PhD.

Her first Co-op was in the biotechnology sector. She was able to contribute to the company's goals as part of its anti-bacterial research group, where she was able to learn the principles of cloning and bacterial protein expression as well as the techniques required for studying disease at the molecular level. She was also able to learn, perform and even help develop several assays for screening compounds as potential therapeutic agents.

Kelley's second Co-op was in academic research. It was here that she discovered her love for academic research. Kelley gained in-depth experience in protein biochemistry and x-ray crystallography. She was included in field studies where the collected data were later used to solve the structure of the target protein of interest. Kelley returned to the same academic lab for succeeding Co-op periods and is listed as co-author on four peer-reviewed publications.

With the experience and knowledge she gained at NU through co-op, Kelley was accepted into several graduate programs at prestigious universities. She chose to attend the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, where she is currently a dissertation student in her sixth and final year.

Because of the experiential education provided by the Northeastern Cooperative Education Program, Kelley's colleagues at UPenn were astounded at her experience and ability to conduct independent research with little additional training. Kelley has been able to use what she had learned in her co-ops and applied those techniques and theories to almost every aspect of her own research projects.

Curriculum Improvement in Practice-Based Biology Program Using Student ePortfolios

Summary of Research Aims and Methodology

The primary goal of this project is to assess student learning in the Biology/Biochemistry undergraduate curriculum, which incorporates traditional academic coursework, experiential education including, but not limited to, experiences in the University Cooperative Education Program and the informal education that comes with student life. The assessment method for this project includes expert review of student work according to well-defined rubrics with performance-based standards of measurable progress toward proficiency in desired learning goals. To facilitate the assessment process, a web based portfolio system was developed that allows students to archive their work and present it in different views for different audiences and a web-based performance evaluation process for use by employers of Northeastern students.