Work Study Employment - Lab Assistant for Biology's Teaching Labs in the ISB

We are recruiting Work Study funded undergraduate student employees to assist with setup of a variety of Biology Dept Lab Courses in the ISB "ISB Biolabs" for Spring 2026.  Experience behind-the-scenes activities that support lab experiments in a teaching laboratory environment and accomplish basic prep work for lab exercises. You will be participating in weekly meetings to discuss, practice, and implement best practices in preparing samples and setting up intuitive workflows for experiments. 

You will mostly* be pipetting and labeling "aliquots" of liquid reagents, refilling pipette tips, processing consumables for sterilization, and assisting with set up / take down of lab workstations.
Duties may include weekly checks on safety equipment (flushing eyewash stations), preparing simple solutions, dishwashing glassware, autoclaving waste, and other duties as assigned (every day is different!).

*Optional:  This Spring in particular, if you have any interest or experience in creating websites - please let us know.  We have a project that has an easy component - and we can train you.  Alternatively, if you'd enjoy a deeper dive into helping us manage and maintain our web pages using Wordpress, please check out our other job listing this round here on Propel (called "Work Study Employment - ISB Biolabs Webpage migration lab assistant". 

Hourly rate of pay: minimum wage
Shift: Mornings preferred most days, especially interested in Friday availability
Total hours per week:  8-10 hours (depends on your Work Study allotment)
Work study funding is a requirement: Yes. YES!

You Must have Work Study Funds already approved for Spring 2026 (via Financial Aid) and Must provide evidence of your awarded amount to schedule an interview for the position, in the event you may be invited to do so.
 

Name of research group, project, or lab
ISB Biology Teaching Labs
Website
https://wahoo.cns.umass.edu
Why participate in this opportunity?

Good opportunity to learn practical laboratory skills 
(can open doors to future positions in research labs, hospitals, and in industry) 

Logistics Information:
Subject Category
Biology
Cellular Biology
Genetics
Genomics
Microbiology
Molecular Biology
Student ranks applicable
Sophomore
Junior
Student qualifications

We Will Train You!  

Required Qualifications:  Must be able to communicate clearly, consistently arrive on time for planned meetings and group work sessions and have a strong willingness to learn new skills, a serious interest in earning all of your work study award for the Spring semester (or nearly all is Ok). 

  1. Apply for this position through the PROPEL site. See propel.umass.edu
  2. In your PROPEL application materials indicate why you want to be an undergraduate TA for Bio151 and what strength do you believe you'll bring to our Bio151 team.
  3. For your application to be complete, you must also fill out This Form to indicate your availability.

    Preferred but not required: Interest migrating old web pages to the new Wordpress site we are building.
    Preferred but not required: Sterile Technique / Cell culture experience.
    Preferred but not required: Ability to lift objects up to 20 pounds 

Experience in lab courses, or any level of lab work, is preferred. If possible, previous experience pipetting liquids and/or performing sterile culture would be excellent qualifications.

For your application to be considered, you Must be ready to provide documentation of your Financial Aid Work Study Award amount for Spring 2026.

Time commitment
8-10 h/wk
11-14 h/wk
15+ h/wk
Position Types and Compensation
Service - Paid, Work-Study Required
Number of openings
2
Techniques learned

While we're looking for students to assist with a variety of upper-level teaching labs for the Biology Department (and more!) - you will be most likely to do work to support Genetics Labs (BIO284), Gene & Genome analysis (BIO383H), and/or Bioimaging (BIO477H). You may be preparing for experiments with cell cultures (yeast, insect, or immortalized mouse or human cancer cells), genotyping projects (yeast and Dogs), DNA transformation (getting cultured cells to express customized genetic material), and /or microscopy-based imaging of live and/or fixed cells. 
You will likely be helping set up for DNA extractions, PCR amplification of DNA segments of interest, DNA gel electrophoresis, generating and characterizing yeast mutants, brightfield and fluorescence-based microscopy, and genotyping students' dogs to examine the genetics of canine coat color. [optional: If you have a dog you'd like to have students work with for this project in Genetics Lab, please let us know!]

Project start
Spring Semester 2026, A bit of Winter Term may be possible if desired
Contact Information:
Mentor
Mary Packard
mpackard@umass.edu
ISB Biology Teaching Labs Support Technician/Instructor
Name of project director or principal investigator
Mary Packard
Email address of project director or principal investigator
mpackard@umass.edu
2 sp. | 0 appl.
Hours
8-10 h/wk (+2)
8-10 h/wk11-14 h/wk15+ h/wk
Project categories
Cellular Biology (+5)
BiologyCellular BiologyGeneticsGenomicsMicrobiologyMolecular Biology