My Voice....

For my voice, I am passionate about learning, and the looking at options for the future. I have a passion about learning new things. I love working at the hospital and listening to patients. Each patients has a unique story of how they have come to that point. They also have interesting advice, but they are very willing to give it to help me in the long run. I also love to research, anything and everything. I always want to try to find answers. My family always mocks me, because I will always bring up random facts, but I will always say “Did you know…?” I also have a passion for running, I lost it for a while, but I am finally getting back into it, and I am feeling great.

As for talents, I am good at math, science, running, and dancing. I don’t think I am very good at dancing, but, people tell me I am. I have gotten to the point where I do not care what people think when I dance. But I am think that I am the biggest obstacle. I tend to be very self-conscious. I am my best when I am by myself or even when I am with some of my really close friends.

My values are my education and lifelong learning, my experience with McNair, my family, and my friends. I find it hard to say no, and it tends to be my down fall. I am a people pleaser and I hate when someone is upset, or hurt, and I especially hate confrontation, I will do whatever possible to avoid it. I am lucky to have such great friends and family and they understand, that my education is my top priority, and I am not willing to compromise it.

One thing that I think needs to be fixed the state that this country is in, when considering the healthcare system and the rate of obesity and cardiovascular disease. I am intrigued that the population that typically has the lowest level of education, also has highest rates of poverty and lower access to healthcare, which also correlate to the higher rates of obesity that translates to higher rates of cardiovascular disease. With the dramatic rates of increase in obesity, the rate for cardiovascular will significantly increase as well.

I will be doing cardiovascular epidemiology and studying how the disease will progress in populations. I want to see how this disease can be decreases. I want to study methods effective in decreasing the significance of CVD.

Unfortunately with the political and big business corporations targeting the desire of the people, obesity and CVD rates will significantly increase. That is why I am so interested in looking how it progressing in children. I want my voice to be heard, I want people to be healthy; body, mind, soul, and heart.

My Research

My research is assessing cardiovascular disease risk factors and ultrasound imaging of blood vessels in children. For my research project I will be working in collaboration with Dr. William Saltarelli, PhD. I first got interested in this research when I was a freshman, and Dr. Salt was talking about research that one of his students had started. I finally decided to get involved my junior year, primarily because of the McNair Scholars Program. The risk factors that a team of researchers and I will be assessing include: body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, and aerobic capacity. As for the ultrasound imaging, we will be looking at the carotid intima-media thickness (IMT). This is the thickness of the artery wall in the carotid artery. We will also look at the flow-mediated dilation of the brachial artery. The brachial artery will have a baseline measurement, and then it will be occluded for 5 minutes with a blood pressure cuff. Then when the five minutes are up, the air will be released from the blood pressure cuff. The imaging of the blood vessel will be taken every 30 seconds on a 10 second loop. When all the images have been taken, the dilation of the blood vessel will be measured.

When all the data has been collected, it will be analyzed with a statistic program to determine the correlations. The thought is that the children with more risk factors with have impaired blood vessels.

It started off that I was going to get subjects through the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe, but things have changed due to timing. I will just be working with general population children. As I get more advanced with my experience and my research, I will progress to working with the population that I want. For now I will be working with a team of undergraduate researchers, who share the same passion for this topic and research.

To my fellow scholars:

It may seem to some that I have everything figured out, but in actuality I am more confused than ever. But I have faith that everything will work out the way it is suppose to. McNair is both help me understand where I want to go, but also making me see all these other opportunities that I can take, and it can be a little overwhelming at times.

I will be honest; at the beginning of this journey I was very skeptical. I did not know what to expect and I had my doubts. I am pleasantly surprised. I have gotten to know many great people who all have similar backgrounds as me. Because we each share similar backgrounds we have formed a support system in which each of can help lift each other up to prosper and accomplish great things.  

We are just beginning the Summer Research Institute, the meat of the program, and it is going to be a long rough road ahead, but I know I have a great support system, my fellow scholars. My family doesn’t really understand what I am doing and why, but I know that my fellow scholars will be there to help guide me, just as I will be there for them.

So far we are one week into the SRI, and it has been challenging but rewarding to say the least. I was challenged when doing the high ropes course and the horseback riding. I was also very challenge with the meditation and trying to turn my thoughts off, as well as the personal training. The personal training kicked my butt, I struggled, but with the encouragement from others I was able to finish.

This summer I want to be more balanced. How I will do this is through maintaining a healthy diet, yoga, meditation, other forms of exercise as outlets to remain balanced. When times get tough I have a great support system who will help me move on. With that being said, I am so excited for this summer. I cannot wait to see what it brings.

McNair SRI started this Monday, and so far I have went on the high-ropes course, horse back riding, yoga, meditation, belly dancing, and a training session at Seung-Ni and it is only Thursday. On top of that I have been training for a half marathon which is in July. I am getting a pretty good head start.