Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Student (Summer 2017)
"During my time at CIRP, I had the opportunity to work on an eclectic constellation of projects. Though I entered the program expecting to work solely with Dr. Linda Fleisher as a member of the Digital Health Initiative, my time at CIRP has been spent in other ways. I have been incredibly fortunate to receive mentorship from Eve Weiss, MS, whom I worked with to set up and perform qualitative analysis of interviews conducted for the AWARE project, an NSF-funded initiative that aims to boost successful grant applications from women and minority entrepreneurs. Through working closely with Research Coordinator Emily Sykes on the MerckEngage study, I learned about participant enrollment, recruitment, retention, and management of a large study database. I was thrilled to also work with Tom Seacrist, MBE to analyze near crash data among novice teen, young adult, and experienced adult drivers using SPSS and medCalc and to earn authorship on a manuscript submission to the Traffic Injury Prevention journal. Combined with my experience working with Aditya Belwadi, PhD, on conducting qualitative analysis on focus group data using NVIVO software, my time here at CIRP demonstrates the ample opportunity for interdisciplinary work available among the various research teams.
In the fall, I will be a junior at Lafayette College pursuing a double major in Neuroscience and Philosophy. My time at CIRP has granted me firsthand insight on the various processes that go into research. These insights will surely guide me in my future graduate school and research pursuits."