‘Great jobs’: Salt Lake students get a peek into life science industry at Human Innovation Day

SALT LAKE CITY — Around 50 high school students in the Salt Lake City School District spent their day Friday getting an inside look at potential future STEM careers as part of the second annual Human Innovation Day.

Hosted 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 chance to chat with 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 at the department of economic development for Salt Lake City. “We are trying to give these kids a vision of what they could be and really, the only way to do that is to see folks like you, faces like you, people like you. And that’s the goal of this interaction every year.”

Students started their day touring the ARUP laboratories — which provides reference laboratory testing for hospitals and health centers — before touring Recursion’s state-of-the-art, clinical-stage biotechnology facility at the Gateway.

Following the tours, the students got the chance to sit down and pick the brains of professional scientists and university students majoring in various STEM fields.

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

Pantle said this year’s crop of students are freshmen and sophomores and the goal is to “catch them young” to help them better gauge and game-plan for their futures.

“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 make a really fertile ground. If we’re growing a garden here, we’re trying to make this soil super friendly for you to put roots down and see how tall you can grow. We want you here.”