‘Great jobs’: Salt Lake students get a glimpse into the life science industry on Human Innovation Day

SALT LAKE CITY – About 50 high school students in the Salt Lake City School District spent their day Friday taking a look at potential future STEM careers as part of the second annual Human Innovation Day.

Human Innovation Day, organized through a partnership between the district, the Salt Lake Education Foundation and Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall’s Tech Lake City initiative, Human Innovation Day introduced students to the state’s fast-growing life science industry and gave them the opportunity to talk to working scientists about career opportunities, internships and more.

“This is about these kids seeing a future in science… but science means so many things. We have companies like Seek Labs, ARUP, Recursion… the state toxicologist is here,” said Brian Pantle, project manager with the department. of Salt Lake City’s economic development. “We’re trying to give these kids a vision of what they could be and the only way to do that is to see people like you, faces like you, people like you. And that’s the goal of this interaction every year. “

The students started their day with a tour of the ARUP laboratories – which provide reference laboratory testing for hospitals and health centers – before touring Recursion’s state-of-the-art clinical biotechnology facility at the Gateway.

After the tours, students had the opportunity to sit down and pick the brains of professional scientists and college students majoring in various STEM fields.

“When I was running for mayor, one of the big things I wanted to do was grow the technology industry in Salt Lake City, not just because it’s an economic thing… but the real reason I want technology in Salt Lake City will is because of you,” Mendenhall said. “These jobs are great jobs. These are mobile jobs where you can grow and scale.”

Pantle said this year’s student body consists of freshmen and sophomores and the goal is to “catch them young” so they can better assess and plan their future.

“You’re going to come up with ideas that none of these scientists have come up with yet. The world needs you to do that too,” Mendenhall said. “So we’re trying to create a very fertile soil. When we build a garden here, we’re trying to make this soil super friendly so you can put roots in it and see how big you can get. We want you to be here.”