This is the final update of a three-part series following two participants during the first year of The Hormel Institute’s Postbaccalaureate Accelerated Career Experience (PACE) program. The first story appeared in the September/October 2025 issue of Austin Living magazine, while the second story can be found on The Hormel Institute’s website.
The month is May. The grass outside The Hormel Institute is finally starting to green, and students wrapping up internships and training programs are turning in their keycards. Here, this is a month of transitions. As many of these bright-eyed research trainees close their chapters here, new cohorts of students will arrive in another few weeks to begin their own adventures.
Some of these trainees participated in the Postbaccalaureate Accelerated Career Experience (PACE): a yearlong, immersive training program that offers recent college graduates both hands-on research experience in the lab and professional development opportunities beyond it. The program is designed to operate as a launching pad for ambitious early-career researchers, giving them extra training and experience so they can excel in graduate-level biomedical research programs.
Two PACErs, as we like to call them at the Institute, are Francis Perroud and Sydney Shirk. As members of the first-ever group to participate in PACE, they’re here to share some of their final reflections on what they’ve discovered and where they’re headed next.
The research
Prior to PACE, Sydney Shirk was an intern in the Institute’s Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE). She’s been working in the lab of Professor Leena Hilakivi-Clarke, PhD, focusing on breast cancer research. The main project Shirk is advancing uses models to investigate how exposure to BTEX, a volatile organic compound found in vehicle emissions, as well as obesity could influence breast cancer risk across generations.
“These areas that have higher amounts of BTEX compounds in their environments are also often food desert areas. Think about a big city, where someone lives in an apartment building and has to walk everywhere. They’re going to be exposed to all these BTEX compounds in the air, which will affect their unborn children. But also, there’s not a good, affordable grocery store near them. There are all these factors going on that are out of this person’s control to a degree. Yes, you choose what you eat, but you also eat what’s available,” Shirk explained.
Francis Perroud arrived at the Institute as a SURE intern in 2024, then returned in February 2025 to take on a full-time research position. Four months later, he transitioned into the PACE program to take advantage of additional professional development opportunities.
He works in the lab of Assistant Professor Ewa Bielczyk-Maczynska, PhD, where the lab’s primary research involves genetics and the regulation of metabolism. Perroud’s main research project has focused on cholesterol synthesis, or how cells make cholesterol, and how it could influence the progression of liver cancer.
Now, the group is also pursuing a patent related to their research.
“We’re working on a potential way in which we can treat hypercholesterolemia, or people with high cholesterol. We found this protein in the liver which we think is really interesting, and it’s never been studied before. We’re pursuing a patent targeting that protein,” Perroud explained. “It’s a huge thing for me personally, but also for the lab.”
New skills
Over the course of the last year, Shirk and Perroud shared that their experiences inside and outside the lab lent them new skills and helped to sharpen existing ones.
“I feel way more knowledgeable. I’ve been working on a lot of projects, meeting a lot of people. Nowadays, getting into AI and how it’s changing entry-level positions the most, employers are looking for real experience, and the PACE program has been perfect for gaining this,” Perroud said.
In the lab, some of that included mastering standard techniques for molecular biologists — like western blot or RT-PCR — and learning when and how to tweak or refine an approach to fit a specific project’s purpose. The learning also extended to scientific communication.
“We’ve worked on manuscripts for our studies, and I’ve presented four posters since the PACE program started and given oral presentations in front of pretty big audiences,” Perroud said.
Shirk was happy about how she was able to strengthen her science communication muscles in the program, too.
“I feel way more confident in myself, my abilities, and what I know how to do. After undergrad, I was anxious about joining the ‘real world,’ but you can get way more anxious about things as you’re thinking about them versus once you actually do them,” Shirk said.
“I also feel like I’ve gotten better at communicating my professional wants and desires in a professional way,” she continued. “And to be able to advocate for myself and say, ‘Oh, I would love to do this thing,’ or ‘Oh, I’m actually not interested in that.’ I’ve also gotten more comfortable with expressing if I don’t know how to do something so I can learn it. That’s a very important skill.”
New leadership experience
There’s something unexpected both PACErs came to appreciate: the experience of transitioning into research leaders themselves and mentoring students at earlier stages in their journeys.
“I wasn’t expecting to be a mentor,” Perroud said. “As a PACE student, you’re being mentored by someone else. Last summer, we had a volunteer researcher for about two months, and that was my first mentorship experience ever. That was very rewarding: learning to not only conduct science, but to communicate it in a way another person can also understand, and see they’re understanding, and from there, able to perform experiments and think about science by themselves.”
Some of Shirk’s most-loved aspects of her time in the PACE program have involved outreach opportunities, where she was able to share science with audiences of all ages.
One of her first experiences when she started PACE was joining the Institute’s Community Outreach and Education team at the Minnesota State Fair. More recently, she participated in one of the Institute’s Science Saturday programs, where young students engage in educational experiments alongside career scientists. Between booths of bubble-blowing and tables filled with microscopes, she was at the helm of the watercolor pipette station, helping students learn good technique in creative fashion.
“That was literally the most fun I’ve had working here. It was so fun seeing all the kids get so excited. Watching them figure it out and get the hang of it, and even teach each other to do things, was so cool,” Shirk said. “Back when I first joined SURE, I wondered why people with established careers might want to deal with me, as a student. But helping with Science Saturday, I realized, ‘Okay, that’s why you do it.’ It’s so fun to watch people figure out what they want to do, what they like, and what they don’t like. And as a mentor, you have the knowledge, and the experience of things you wish you did differently, and you can pass that wisdom on to a new generation.”
New adventures
As new adventures await them, Shirk and Perroud are each stepping on in pace with their own drums.
“I’m ready to move on to the next thing, while enjoying my days here,” Perroud said.
When considering his “next thing”, Perroud had plenty of options to choose from. He received six acceptances to graduate programs, including from Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University, to name a couple. Ultimately, his winning pick was New York University Tandon School of Engineering, where he will be pursuing a master’s degree in science for biotechnology and entrepreneurship. It’s a smooth continuation from his undergraduate experience, where he studied both biology and business.
“In science, there are huge opportunities for understanding the business part of the field. You have basic science research, you have pharmaceutical companies and clinics that are closer to the patients, and then you have people who understand the basic science and translate it into the ‘end’ of the path, to the patient side. I like the idea of sitting right in the middle, where I can help projects in basic research labs become therapies for patients to help them recover from cancer or other diseases,” Perroud explained.
Before he makes the move to New York, he’ll continue work in his current research lab at the Institute through the summer, where he’ll mentor yet another summer intern.
Shirk is staying on for a second year of PACE. As she continues progressing on her current project, she plans to look for more job-shadowing opportunities across different areas of research with the goal of entering a graduate program within the next five years.
She shared PACE helped her realize that in addition to data analysis, she feels fascinated by connections between different aspects of research and their real-world applications. As she continues her research, she wants to explore ways to share these insights with different audiences.
“I look at the data and I see all these connections it has, and I think, ‘How can I tell everyone about this? Everyone needs to know this.’ I would love to help with more outreach and do things like get in schools to be able to make science exciting for people — kids or adults,” Shirk said.
For now, she feels grateful for time to continue enhancing skills and exploring opportunities.
“Not only are we contributing to research, we’re doing something we want to do. We’re having fun at our jobs, and we’re also still learning,” Shirk said. “I’ve learned a lot of things, I have a degree, but at the same time, I’m 21. Out of an 80-year lifespan, that’s a lot of time to go!”
Advice for future PACErs
Now with a full year’s experience under both their belts, Shirk and Perroud have some sage wisdom for the next cohort of PACErs to get the most out of their experiences.
“Do whatever you can. Take whatever opportunities are given to you. Learn from other people’s lives. Even if you think you may not want to do something, go and talk to other people, and learn why they’re doing what they’re doing. Also, ask people how they got to where they are,” said Shirk.
“Be curious! One thing I tried to follow over the last year was to do as much as I could here while I could. Being at The Hormel Institute and having so many people who have done a lot of really interesting things in their fields, and have been in their fields for a long time. Learn as much as you can, and that will pay off at some point,” Perroud said.