Shant credits this opportunity to his participation with ACMS's Mathematical and Computational Biology Group under the advisement of Professor Mark Alber. Their collaborations within the Notre Dame campus community flourished Shant's hand-on laboratory skills by nurturing the transition from his applied mathematics background into his abilities to handle, grow, and prepare bacteria for observation and data collection. ACMS's collaborations off campus played an important role in exposing Shant to a national laboratory setting, where professionals and students from a wide range of backgrounds oversee projects involving a variety of scientific disciplines. Shant looks forward to his return to share his newly broadened perspective, and to continue onward in his own interdisciplinary research projects at Notre Dame.