OUR Podcast Sharing the research stories of University of Kentucky undergraduates

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Unknown
Welcome to the Ojibwa podcast.

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Unknown
Hey, guys. Welcome to the show your podcast. My name is Austin and I'm Emma, and today we have Joey Sharp. Hi. Thank you for having me. Thanks for joining us. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself? Yeah, I am a sophomore anthropology major at UK, and I've been working at the Wear Museum under Lisa Gray and through honors under Doctor Zeta Kamara.

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Unknown
That's awesome. Could you tell us a little bit about how you got started with research at UK. Yeah. So I'm from Lexington and the high school I went to had a program called University Research. And through that I started working at the Web museum for half days. Every single weekday. After that, they got me connected with an REU program through UK over the summer, and I continued doing research when I came to UK as a freshman.

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Unknown
For those of us who don't know, could you explain what the web museum is a little bit? Yeah. So the web museum is the anthropology Museum on UC's campus, and it has a ton of collections, both archeological and ethnographic. So archeology is the stuff that's been dug up. Ethnographic is the stuff that's been donated or just acquired, not by digging it up.

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Unknown
They have an extensive amount of Native American artifacts and then also artifacts from around the world. Where is that located? It's off of Virginia Avenue. Off of Export Street. Okay, awesome. I might have to check that out. It's really cool. I will say it's not open to the public, but they do a lot of different. Like tours and stuff through different.

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Unknown
Just like clubs. Okay, sweet. What would be like the coolest experience that you've had working at the Web Museum? I've had a lot of really cool experiences there. However, I think the coolest was when I walked in one day over the summer and saw Josh gates, who is the host of Expedition Unknown, which is on the History Channel, and something that, like my family has watched religiously since I've had a memory.

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Unknown
And so walking in and seeing Josh gates and being like, is that Josh gates? And then like getting to see them record an expedition unknown episode and me and my friend who are working there at the time got like nothing done that day because we were just like in awe, like watching everything happen and getting to see the filming process of the episode.

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Unknown
And then my dad sent me the episode when it got released and was like, look, this is the episode about your, like, the Webb Museum. And it was just so cool. It's amazing, especially to get recognition like on this smaller level, I feel like it's it's really cool. Where you in the background of any scenes? No, we actually got kicked out from most of the area that we needed to work on, which is one of the reasons we were not that productive.

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Unknown
I feel like they should have interviewed you or something and get some perspective. It was so if you guys know what UK is doing with the Herculaneum scrolls now, do you know what Herculaneum is? No. Okay, so Herculaneum is another city that got buried by Mount Vesuvius, along with Pompeii, except it got buried with significantly more ash, so it was harder to excavate.

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Unknown
And not as much is known about it, but a lot of the like scrolls were preserved because of Mount Vesuvius and the ash that buried it. And UK has been working with the computer science program to digitally unwrap these scrolls. They've also they did that with Herculaneum, and then they did it with the Dead Sea Papyri, which are like religious texts.

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Unknown
And like Josh Gates and Expedition Unknown were coming specifically to talk about what they were doing with the digital unwrapping of these scrolls. And so I was working on Native American artifacts, so they weren't really interested in what I was doing, but it was really cool to be able to work in the same program that was doing such a, like, cool, internationally known archeological project.

00;04;17;20 - 00;04;48;05
Unknown
That's amazing. Yeah, I couldn't even imagine, like, walking in one day and like seeing someone that you looked up to, like and watched on TV and yeah, it's amazing. I was spammed texting my parents. Do you have any idea, like, what's on the scrolls? Are you aware of that? So I'm actually right now working with Doctor Vesalius, which is an ancient Greek professor at UK, to help create a literature review that can be used to train AI to read the scrolls.

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Unknown
A lot of what's on the scrolls right now that I've read about have been like legal notes, poetic works. There's been some just like personal writings. There's a lot of philosophy and the libraries at Herculaneum that were found, so much so that it helped. Like one of the theories is that the library was owned by like, this specific man, because there's so many works of his own philosophical works.

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Unknown
And their theory was that, like, no one would have this much of this man's philosophy. Oracle works. Has I been like a big thing for you guys right now, kind of with your research? For me, it's more of on the periphery, but it is a very massive thing in archeology right now, really just using it to the advantage while also trying not to let it like overrun the entire field.

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Unknown
It's a really hard line to balance because you want to keep moving with the times, and it can give so much help in making these little reviews. Like right now, I've been translating just a lot of the papers about these scrolls are written in Italian, and I do not know Italian. And so I've just been using AI to help me translate into English, so I can then read it and summarize it, and they can use it to train the AI to read these scrolls.

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Unknown
That's great. Have you done any research outside of Kentucky? Yeah, so I actually was able to participate in a field school in Greece over the past summer, and I got to work with bio archeology research. It's amazing. Could you tell us a little bit more about your trip to Greece and kind of what you were doing there a little bit more?

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Unknown
Yeah. So I went to Greece as part of University College London to bio archeology program on Esther Polya. There is a large child cemetery that so far over 3000 remains have been found, and because it is on this small island, pretty much the only options are that the remains would just get thrown away. Or they can be used to be studied and get a better picture of both child osteology and the history of both, like the island and the time of these burials.

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Unknown
And so I worked on a couple of different burials, basically removing the bones from the burials. All the children were buried in one amphora. So basically, like vessels that were used to carry wine during trading and because they were buried in the dirt for over 2000 years, a lot of them had collapsed. So a lot of the bones would be in like poor condition.

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Unknown
And basically we were trying to take them out and keep them as well-preserved as possible. That's so cool. What did your day to day look like while you're over there? Yeah, so we would wake up at like six in the morning and we would get on a bus to bring us to the lab, which was actually an old elementary school building.

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Unknown
And we would work and just work on the burials for eight hours, and we would have like two eating breaks or we got to have Greek food they brought like every other day. They would bring stuff from local restaurants. So I got to eat like a lot of falafels, which were really good, and Greek pizza, which was also very good.

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Unknown
And then after working with the burials for eight hours, we were done by like three, and we would go back on the bus and we would have the rest of the day to just be on a Greek island, or you go to explore a lot, like kind of on your off time and do a lot of different things.

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Unknown
Yeah, it was really cool. And so there's 11 other people in the field school with me, and so a lot of us would go off and like go to different beaches or go we stayed in Laval, D, which was a smaller town that was right next to the bigger, the bigger city on the island. And so a lot of us would like go up into the city and like explore and go shopping.

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Unknown
And it was really fun.

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Unknown
Oh, your podcast is supported by UK research, the Office of Undergraduate Research in the Media Depot. How did you get involved with this? So there is a website that has just a map of all of the different field schools that you can get involved in. And I found this field school actually two summers ago when I was still 17.

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Unknown
And I you have to be 18 to get involved in most field schools. And it was perfect because I really want to combine both bio archeology, which is like working with remains, and classical archeology, which is the area around the Mediterranean. And so when I found in bio archeology field school in Greece, it was literally like my perfect field school and a dream come true.

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Unknown
And so I applied during the last school year and I got accepted. And a lot of that was because of my mentor, Lisa Garay, who wrote me a recommendation letter, and she helped me throughout the whole process. And then through that, I got to just go on my own and experience it. That's really cool. That's amazing. A lot of the time, even like me, sometimes we kind of think of like, research, meaning in the medical field.

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Unknown
Why do you think, in your opinion, it's so important for this research to be known, like getting involved in it and everything? I think there's a lot of different layers to that. First of all, I think it's really interesting how much archeology blends both humanities and science, and especially for people who have a lot of interest. I think archeology is such a cool subject to go into.

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Unknown
Through last summer, I got to look from a more anatomical perspective of archeology, and two summers ago I got to work with the Edge Use lab to do a more engineering perspective of archeology. And then also archeology is looking through history. It's finding ways to learn more about our history without written records, which is so important because we need to learn from our ancestors both their accomplishments and their mistakes.

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Unknown
And archeology gives us another way to learn from our ancestors. It's interesting because I didn't even you read into like, chemistry, like engineering, like history, like science. It's all kind of combined into that. So that's really cool. Yes. So two summers ago I worked with the edges clubs to through the Computer science are you program to look at like Native American artifacts.

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Unknown
Okay. What did that entail? So a lot of what it entailed was using a lot of different machinery, like electron spectroscopy and using like, I don't know the specific name for it, but it's basically a CT scanner that scans a document and makes a 3D model of the document that you can zoom and see internally, which is what they're actually using to digitally unwrap the scrolls.

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Unknown
I used it to look at the different layers inside of what we thought were Native American artifacts that were actually side right nodules, which is a geological formation that is common in Kentucky. And basically using these machines and computer science to look more into these artifacts. That's awesome. Would you say that the future of research is being very interdisciplinary?

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Unknown
Absolutely. I think interdisciplinary studies is so important because you can learn a lot from just like zooming in to one specific thing, but it becomes useful when you combine a bunch of different fields and getting that big full picture. You spoke earlier about the humanities. What role would you say the humanities play in the future of research in your perspective?

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Unknown
I think humanities are incredibly important in research, and a lot of the times underestimated. I mean, history in general. I've said this before like we it's so important that we learn from our ancestors and our history, and all the knowledge we have right now is from our ancestors. It's everything that we've built up, generation and generation for thousands of years.

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Unknown
And being able to study not just how we use that information now, but how they use that because information gets lost, perspectives get lost, and using humanities gives us, again, a more fuller picture of these fields. What is your favorite part about being involved in undergraduate research? I honestly all of it. I love how it's given me the ability to try a bunch of different parts of research.

00;13;26;01 - 00;13;53;27
Unknown
I've always known that I wanted to do something with archeology, but through undergraduate research, I've gotten to see what I like to specialize in. I have gotten to work with so many different types of archeology. With doctor related Cameron Honors, I've been able to work with historic archeology on a site that was from like the 50s, and then obviously in Greece, I got to work with a site that was mainly from the archaic period, like 2000 years ago.

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Unknown
And then at the War Museum, I worked with a lot of Native American artifacts, and I really gotten to go around and just try a bunch of different fields, hands on rather than just theoretically. And I think it's a really incredible way that I've been able to just get experience, especially just as a sophomore. I'm very, very grateful that I've been able to have so many experiences.

00;14;17;14 - 00;14;46;09
Unknown
That's awesome. Which part about your research experience would you say is your favorite? Definitely the Greece then. I loved being in Greece. It was a dream come true. I was really, really, really obsessed with Percy Jackson as a kid. And so being able to actually be in Greece and not only working on an archeology site in Greece, but my family went around basically road trip around Greece and got to see all these archeology sites that I have been nerding out about since I was like 12 years old.

00;14;46;11 - 00;15;07;21
Unknown
It was just such an incredible experience and like literally something I had been dreaming of for like ten years. So that's amazing, especially since you had to bring your family and it kind of bring the full circle. What advice would you have for any undergrads that go here that are looking to get into archeology research and kind of go abroad?

00;15;07;28 - 00;15;29;07
Unknown
I think my main thing would just be like, don't be scared to code email. I have called, emailed so many people and it's shocking how many people want to help you with your research and how friendly and open most of the professors are, especially in the anthropology department. Like, people want you to be involved in the things that they love.

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Unknown
They want to share their passion with students and get people involved in these things. And I feel like a lot of students are scared to email. I'm terrified emailing people I love. I'm really lucky that I have like parents. I can send my emails to and be like, please, over like, oh, oversee this, make sure I don't sound like ridiculous.

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Unknown
But yeah, just being able to like cold email because the worst they're going to say is no. Yeah for sure. That's a very important point that I think a lot of people they fear of being told no. And they, they kind of make it into this big thing to email someone. But it really is that simple and it's really important to reach out.

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Unknown
How has research impacted your future career goals. It's definitely helped me narrow down what I want to do. I love working with Native American artifacts and I love working with historic archeology. However, I've had the experience of being able to work with the classical archeology, and both just because it's been something that I've thought I've wanted to do for so long and being able to actually have experience and being able to be young, being like, yes, I am certain that this is what I want to do.

00;16;40;17 - 00;16;57;16
Unknown
Also, I have a really important question for you. It's super serious. What is your favorite Indiana Jones movie? I actually have not watched many Indiana Jones movies. I always get that and I feel like a fraud, but.

00;16;57;18 - 00;17;16;15
Unknown
Thank you, Joey, for joining us. And, thank you for educating us about your experience with research, especially in the field of archeology. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for listening. Connect with us on social media and learn more about this episode in the description. Stay tuned for more!

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Unknown
Welcome to the Iowa Podcast.

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Unknown
Hi everyone. I'm Addie and I'm in LA. And today we are joined with Doctor Nathan Blanford and Camryn Jackson from the action Program. This is our part two, episode two, our previous episode. If you all want to give a little rundown about what action is, yes. So action is the Appalachian Career Training and Oncology Program action for short.

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Unknown
I'm Cameron Jackson, I am a junior majoring in neuroscience. I was a member of the undergrad cohort for. I started in 2023 and just wrapped up, just graduated out of the program. So pretty sad. But I've also had some involvement in our student organization, which is a separate entity from this, and I was our vice president. So I got to do a lot of really cool outreach opportunities with that.

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Unknown
And I also got to work as an RA slash peer mentor for the high school program. This past summer. So I really love action. I'm really excited that I get to be here today and talk about it, but I'll let Doctor Rainsford say a little more about it. Yeah. As you heard on the first episode, first part.

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Unknown
I'm a faculty member here at UK. Associate professor, toxicology, cancer biology in the College of Medicine. Great. Thank you all for sharing. So this episode we're going to focus a lot on your all's book that's coming out. We kind of want to start off with what inspired you all to make a book in the first place? Yeah. So as I briefly mentioned in the first part, we have four books now.

00;01;37;20 - 00;01;57;22
Unknown
So the first two books were personal essays written by students about their experiences with cancer, be it, you know, in their families or communities or whatever the case might be. They talked about why they think cancer rates are so bad in eastern Kentucky. And then they also talked about what they think could be done to address it, specifically in eastern Kentucky.

00;01;57;24 - 00;02;25;25
Unknown
And the more recent two books are realistic fictional stories about the cancer issue in Kentucky. So what inspired us to begin this process? So I talked a little bit in the first part about the cancer problem in Kentucky. So we have very high cancer rates first. And overall cancer incidence second and overall mortality. So a lot of cancer, a lot of cancer in eastern Kentucky in particular, lots of numbers around describing that cancer burden.

00;02;25;25 - 00;02;51;29
Unknown
Right. But those numbers do a disservice to all the personal stories that are found within those statistics. Right. So the idea of the book was to give some personal narrative around the cancer issue in Kentucky from students perspective, from these books, have you guys seen personally like an impact that's been made in eastern Kentucky? So from my perspective, it'll be interesting to hear Cameron's perspective.

00;02;51;29 - 00;03;25;27
Unknown
But I think we have an impact on students. So initially the idea of this is it's an educational activity for students to explore these topics. And so they learn a lot. I think through the process they learn a lot about cancer risk factors, modifiable behaviors. Then they also can learn a lot about their family history. So particularly in the first two books, students told me that they would go and have conversations with their family about cancer in their family and they would learn about grandparents or, you know, extended family members that had cancer.

00;03;26;00 - 00;03;47;07
Unknown
Maybe the student didn't know that. Maybe the student didn't even really know that person. And they learn more about the family history in particular. Several students learned a lot about grandparents that they didn't know, like a lot about just the grandparent in general, but then specifically about how that person experienced cancer. So the student learns a lot in that process.

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Unknown
The family, through these conversations, they learn a lot also, I think, and then once we get those books published, they become education outreach tools. People read them and then they start to think and learn more about cancer. And I've had people tell me I think as as we touched on a little bit in the first episode, that not a lot of people maybe know about the cancer problem in Kentucky.

00;04;13;28 - 00;04;41;08
Unknown
So reading these books, they learn about that and I've had people tell me that, you know, they didn't they didn't know about the cancer burden until experiencing these books and learning about it in that way. Yeah, absolutely. I agree with everything that you just said, but something that I've seen personally in my experience is it kind of goes with what Doctor Radford was saying, and it kind of makes way for conversation to be able to be had with members of your community.

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Unknown
You know, really just anyone who is from the places that are in Appalachian Kentucky like we are. I think that there's a very a culture that runs very deep of self-sustainability and independence. And so that kind of creates the culture of, oh, we don't talk about these things. We don't show vulnerability in that way. You know, like if we don't talk about it, it's not there.

00;05;01;16 - 00;05;21;09
Unknown
And so in my experience of sharing my writing, or I had a friend who was also from Greene County who came a year before me into the program, and when the book was published, she was in the first edition of the book with the fictional stories. It kind of created a conversation for everyone in my hometown to say, like, this is really interesting.

00;05;21;09 - 00;05;38;02
Unknown
We've never thought about how it's not normal to know this. Many people dying from cancer and this many people having cancer in general. And so I'd say the impact that I've been able to see is just people being more comfortable to talk about these things, where otherwise they would have just probably dismissed it or tried to keep it quiet.

00;05;38;04 - 00;05;56;28
Unknown
Yeah, I feel like it gives like a motivation to kind of become more educated, absolutely. Figure out ways to prevent it or become more educated on that for sure, or even just acknowledge its existence. I think it's great that you've also personally been able to see that firsthand impact from what you're doing. Absolutely. Thank you. Could you go into a little bit more on your story?

00;05;56;28 - 00;06;38;03
Unknown
And. Yeah, I saw the book. Yeah, I do. So in our most recent book, the one that we're talking about today, I have a short story called cigarets. And my story doesn't necessarily tell my own personal experience, but it kind of just tells the story of the people around me and the people that I love and kind of their experience that I've seen with cancer, because my story kind of tells how a child gets educated on the fact that cigarets and tobacco that we see so prevalently in our own communities causes cancer and kind of has this the child has this realization that, okay, my grandparents, who I live with, they smoke cigarets, but they're

00;06;38;03 - 00;06;55;01
Unknown
not bad people, but they're saying that, you know, these cigarets cause this bad thing that is cancer, because you know, cancer is kind of just perceived as something that is so bad. We don't talk about it, you know, it's just it looms over us, but we're not going to stay too close to it because we don't speak it into existence or anything like that.

00;06;55;08 - 00;07;30;06
Unknown
And so it's kind of like as soon as a child starts to understand that, like, okay, this thing is bad, that someone that I love is doing and they're trying to make it make sense in their head that like, okay, but this person's not bad, but they're partaking in something that is bad. And I feel like it just kind of tells a very true and very realistic story about a child's first interaction of understanding how cancer comes to be, and then also having to understand that, like when our grandparents or even our parents were younger, or we're going through school or anything like that, they didn't have the same knowledge in the same health education

00;07;30;09 - 00;07;50;22
Unknown
that we have now, or that we're trying to get into the Appalachian region now. So that's kind of what my story covered. The all of the stories are so amazing, but that's just kind of what mine was kind of getting after. So yeah. So I've never told Cameron this, but I think out of the four books we've published, 115 stories now, they're all my favorite.

00;07;50;22 - 00;08;17;08
Unknown
It's like your kids, right? You love them all the same. But this one I can relate to, and this is an example of how we hope that readers can relate to these stories. So my dad smoked for like 45 years, right? And I told you in the first episode that he died of lung cancer. So I can remember as a kid thinking about how harmful these products were, I would hide his cigarets sometimes and he would get so mad.

00;08;17;11 - 00;08;48;08
Unknown
So Cameron's story sort of personally makes me think about, you know, my past experience. And that's what we hope these stories do, right? They connect with people's personal experiences, their own personal experience lives. And it makes them think deeper about cancer, the cancer risk factors that they might be putting on themselves or their family members might be experience seeing and having those difficult conversations around, you know, modifying behaviors that might lower risk, right?

00;08;48;10 - 00;09;23;20
Unknown
Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that. And yeah, absolutely. Thank you guys. I appreciate it. Even with you guys now talking about like it has me thinking about these situations. And it's kind of presented in a lighthearted way with these stories, but it really hits like in a certain way and like people can really relate to that. That's something that I see as like a very valuable aspect of these stories is cancer is obviously science in numbers and a lot of really looming and scary things that a lot of the time, even people like us who are science people don't really understand in this kind of creates that human aspect about it.

00;09;23;20 - 00;09;43;11
Unknown
And, you know, just like you said, not necessarily lighthearted, but just on a more personal level where we can have a conversation about something without fear of feeling undereducated or just not really able to participate in the conversation, because we're all people and we all have feelings. So I feel like this kind of creates that commonality and common ground for everyone.

00;09;43;14 - 00;09;47;13
Unknown
The same.

00;09;47;15 - 00;10;13;26
Unknown
Oh, your podcast is supported by UK research, the Office of Undergraduate Research and the Media Depot. Kind of playing off what we've just been talking about. I'm really curious what your process of like the research that you've done here translated into writing a fictional story about cancer. We kind of have been talking about that, but in a sense of like, what does that process kind of look like from start to finish?

00;10;13;28 - 00;10;42;26
Unknown
So I think that all of the research that goes into being a student in the action program is so valuable. Like, obviously, I participated in wet lab research and Doctor Ren's use lab through the Markey Cancer Center, where he researches the microenvironment of metastatic breast cancer cells. And that was such a valuable experience. I got to learn a lot of awesome lab techniques and kind of see an aspect of cancer research that I really didn't even know existed because of where I'm from, being such a rural place.

00;10;42;29 - 00;11;03;00
Unknown
But I will say that the research that goes into action is so much broader than that because, as Doctor Vandervoort mentioned in the previous episode, a lot of what we do is outreach and education. And I would also consider that part of the research, because I've gained so much knowledge about the way that people feel and the way that they talk about these things in the way that they react to them.

00;11;03;02 - 00;11;37;09
Unknown
And so I think that honestly, my experiences in speaking to legislators at Cancer Action Day about cancer in my community or just, you know, facilitating those student organization meetings where we talk about the cancer disparities in Appalachia and seeing people learn about them who knew nothing about it. I think that those experiences with actual people were the ones that really contributed to my story, because I kind of got to think about, okay, how do people react to things like this, and how did they usually like with what tone do they talk about cancer and how is it presented?

00;11;37;09 - 00;11;55;28
Unknown
You know, like in my story, I kind of have a teacher who was talking to a student, and she's trying to present it in more of a lighthearted way while still getting her message across. So I think that that definitely came from like understanding the conversations that are had about cancer and how we approach that. And if that answers your question, it does.

00;11;56;01 - 00;12;15;15
Unknown
It makes a lot of sense. And I think that's a really great way to go about creating a story like that. I think that's I don't know the word for that. Like, I don't know, it's like, thank you really, really awesome I appreciate it. Yeah. To add on to that, I think, you know, cancer is a very comprehensive disease, right?

00;12;15;15 - 00;12;48;15
Unknown
I mean, it's certainly it's a biological genetic disease, but there's lots of other things that go on with cancer and cancer patients and how they deal with the disease and how they experience it in their families and their communities. And so that's what we hope to do with these stories. Like we want students to think much more broadly, as Cameron said, about not just the biological aspects of the disease, but about all the the social, emotional, all these comprehensive aspects of the disease.

00;12;48;15 - 00;13;06;24
Unknown
And that's what students do. And they've I mean, they've been remarkable stories. Yeah. You know, the biological part even I was like, we're both science, like real science people here. It can get confusing. And so when you take it back to, oh, let's tell these stories where it's like, you really do get the side of, oh, this is an emotional thing.

00;13;06;24 - 00;13;26;25
Unknown
And if we don't talk about this, it can get worse. So I think that you guys are adding a voice to these communities to really help motivate people is amazing, right? Yeah. And I mean, we we want to reach people who don't have science backgrounds, right. So that's part of the strategy is to write these stories in a way that are reachable to those people.

00;13;26;25 - 00;14;08;07
Unknown
Right. What is kind of the future that you guys are hoping for for these fictional novels or, and kind of where do you want it to go? So, movie. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah. You know what? What about a play and then a movie? That's cool. So I think, you know, we've done this, we've morphed into another project that maybe we could come back and talk about some other day, a photo voice project where students take photographs of things that they think are related to cancer in eastern Kentucky, and then they write a short description of that photograph.

00;14;08;09 - 00;14;32;23
Unknown
And so that has been we've done that now since 2020, 2021. We have 300 plus photos. And so we're going to try to publish those as a book. And then we're going to morph on that a little bit and do more text around the photos kind of melding together the story writing with the photo project. And we'll see where that goes.

00;14;32;23 - 00;15;04;16
Unknown
But like the idea of a movie. Yeah, it's like it's in the works. If, you know, somebody put them in context. I think, in all seriousness, obviously Doctor Bamford is the one leading the charge on where all of this goes. But I see a lot of beauty in the fact that as you kind of tap into the creativity that all of us can kind of bring to the table, all it does is just create more room for conversation and kind of just like deeper analysis of what's going on here and why we are here.

00;15;04;16 - 00;15;36;05
Unknown
And so I think that wherever you guys decide to go with it and wherever action can take all of it will be awesome. So, well, I guess I'll also add. So we've been doing these activities for a number of years now. There are other programs out there nationally similar to us that are funded by the same National Cancer Institute funding mechanism that do similar activities as us, and we've inspired many of those programs to do some of the activities that we've done, story writing, photo projects.

00;15;36;08 - 00;15;57;12
Unknown
So I think in that way, what we've done is having an even greater national impact, you know, encouraging other students to do these kinds of activities to have the same kind of impact in their communities that we've talked about having in Eastern Kentucky. That's a that's amazing that you guys are kind of expanding in a way, like, even though it's not maybe through this program, I hear, but it's inspiring so many other programs.

00;15;57;12 - 00;16;25;10
Unknown
So I think that's great. Yeah. Thank you. I also think just like the purpose of this outreach that you all are doing, we can look at the science, we can look at the data all we want, but not everyone has access to that or also has the tools to understand that and like digest that information. So I think putting it in a form that is applicable to everyone out in that community is a really, really great way to spread awareness.

00;16;25;10 - 00;16;45;05
Unknown
Absolutely. Yeah. And by you saying that, it makes me think of of something I've experienced. So we've talked about the high cancer rates in Eastern Kentucky. Right. And you go out in eastern Kentucky and you talk to people about this and they don't know the data like you were just alluding to. But they know a lot of people who have had cancer, you know, in their families, in their communities.

00;16;45;07 - 00;17;22;23
Unknown
And so then they start to connect the dots, like, I know so many people who have cancer, it makes sense that we have such high cancer rates. Right? So I think that's another way to connect these more complex ideas around the data with people's personal experiences. For our listeners, were some places that we can access the book. So the all the books are available on Amazon so you can search the book titles, or you can search my name and you can find them and then other opportunities to engage with us related to the most recent book, in particular.

00;17;22;25 - 00;17;43;28
Unknown
So on November 1st, we're going to be at the Kentucky Book Festival at the Joseph Beth Book Store. It's an all day event will be there. And then on November 7th, we're going to have a panel discussion, with some of the authors here on campus at the King Library and the Special Collections Research Center in the Great Hall.

00;17;43;28 - 00;18;04;29
Unknown
So that'll be in the afternoon. People can come by and hear from some of our authors and learn more about the books there. Thank you all so much. We've really enjoyed getting to learn about action and how you've transformed this into this great impact on the community. We hope that you guys have so much success in the future with the books and just with the whole program, and we thank you guys for being here today.

00;18;05;03 - 00;18;21;06
Unknown
Well, thank you guys so much for having us. I always love any opportunity to talk about action. And Doctor Cranford and Holly both have done so much for me and my time here at UK. So yeah, thank you very much. Thank you for listening. Connect with us on social media and learn more about this episode in the description.

00;18;21;10 - 00;18;24;03
Unknown
Stay tuned for more!

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;15;28
Unknown
Welcome to the Iowa Podcast.

00;00;16;01 - 00;00;36;17
Unknown
Hi everyone. My name is Emma and I'm Adi. And today we're joined by doctor Nathan Bedford and Rebecca Spradlin. Thank you all for joining us today. Yeah, thanks for having us. Happy to be here. If you guys wanna go kind of into a background of UK and why you're here. That'd be great. I'm Rebecca Spelling, and I'm a senior human health sciences major.

00;00;36;18 - 00;01;00;04
Unknown
And my research through action was with Doctor Morse's zebrafish lab. I'm Nathan Brander. It and I'm now an associate professor here at UK. I'm in the toxicology cancer biology department and the College of Medicine, director of the Appalachian Career Training and Oncology Program, or action program for short, that we're going to be talking to him about today. And I'm also a UK alum twice and twice over, actually, I was an undergrad here and I got my PhD here.

00;01;00;07 - 00;01;27;08
Unknown
Can you all start by discussing the background of action and its evolution to what it's become? Yeah, action is a cancer training program that I started in 2016. It started with undergraduates. Later on in 2018, got a bigger grant that allowed us to expand to high school students. And the premises were training the next generation of cancer professionals, whether their health care providers, researchers, community impact professionals who can help us address the cancer burden in Kentucky.

00;01;27;09 - 00;01;54;08
Unknown
So Kentucky has arguably the highest cancer burden in the US. We're first in cancer overall, cancer incidence rates second, and overall cancer mortality rates. Those rates are largest, biggest, greatest, in eastern Kentucky. And so this program recruits eastern Kentucky students, again, high school undergraduate students gets them in this program and works on preparing them for cancer careers.

00;01;54;11 - 00;02;16;09
Unknown
What are some of the particular roles for high schoolers and even undergrad examples that they kind of participate in? Yeah. So the program has, at least four parts. So we get students involved in cancer research here on campus. We get them involved in cancer education activities. They have opportunities to do clinical shadowing. And then there's an outreach component.

00;02;16;09 - 00;02;39;18
Unknown
So the program does outreach. And then we encourage students to do outreach. Also in the outreach is really geared toward helping the community understand the cancer problem in Kentucky, helping them understand cancer risk factors and modifiable behaviors that might lower one's cancer risk. Rebecca, what has been your experience in the action program so far? I really enjoyed my experience in the action program.

00;02;39;20 - 00;03;07;14
Unknown
I was in it for two years. Previously, for the undergrad portion. And some of my favorite experiences were, the photo project that we did where we took pictures just around eastern Kentucky. Or it could be in Lexington, just in our local communities showing sort of, common things that made us think of cancer. And from that, we were able to write descriptions in like how that may impact people just seeing that in their daily lives and to remind them about cancer and how common it is in eastern Kentucky.

00;03;07;17 - 00;03;31;20
Unknown
It's very impactful. And it's I think what you guys are doing is really great. What are some ways that really seen this program grow and help the residents in that area, even like student wise? Like, how is that? Have you seen this come full circle? Yeah. So, again, so we started in 2016. And one thing I didn't mention in the overview of the program is students are in it for two years.

00;03;31;20 - 00;03;57;23
Unknown
So it's sort of a long term impact program on students, which means we can impact students really deeply. But we don't impact as many students because it's a two year program, if that makes sense. So since the program started, we've engaged 157 students, and I like to think that that's 157 students that would not be doing these kind of activities without this program.

00;03;57;28 - 00;04;20;05
Unknown
You know, they might they might do research when they're here UK they might do some clinical shadowing. But but it's not all under this umbrella of one program where they're thinking about all these activities and how it could lead them to potentially a cancer related career. Right. So we've impacted all those students, but also those students. I think they learn about cancer.

00;04;20;05 - 00;04;41;10
Unknown
I think, and I know that some students go and they talk to their families. They talk to their community members about what they've learned. So they they impact their family and the community in that way. And that's just the students. But then the outreach that we do, we have an even greater impact on the community. I think spreading cancer awareness and that part is harder to measure.

00;04;41;15 - 00;05;06;24
Unknown
But, you know, we've done a number of activities that I think have a pretty big impact on the community. It's amazing. I think what you're doing is great. Thank you. Speaking of how it's impacting Appalachia, obviously there's a lack of health care options and providers in that area. So what have you learned through the action program that you believe will help the most in addressing these systemic issues facing Appalachia?

00;05;06;28 - 00;05;29;25
Unknown
I think for me, from a student perspective, just learning about all of the actual like cancer statistics. Like before being an actuary, I knew that cancer was bad in Appalachian regions, but actually learning about the true statistics and how bad it is, even for a specific type of types of cancer like I've seen, one presentation from another actually student talking about breast cancer and how that specific type can even, disproportionately affect Appalachian, residents.

00;05;30;02 - 00;05;46;25
Unknown
I think just seeing those statistics and even with shadowing, seeing how patients have to travel so far, like they have to use a Hope lodge for housing, seeing those things really motivates you as a student and wanting to go back in and care for the Appalachian region. Once you get like medical degree or any other degree that you're going for.

00;05;46;28 - 00;06;25;20
Unknown
Yeah, I think for me, even when I started this program, I don't think I had as good of a sense of the lack of health care in rural eastern Kentucky. In fact, there's some counties in Kentucky that don't even have a primary care doctor in the county. You know, there's some counties that have little to no access to hospitals or clinics that are staffed with MDS or those kinds of cases, you know, so I think we as a program, we're not going to solve that right now, but hopefully we're planning a seat in these students that can go down the road and think about how they can help their communities, even if they're not employed

00;06;25;20 - 00;06;50;00
Unknown
in a clinic or whatever in those communities. They might be employed here at UK as a clinician and can think about outreach opportunities into their counties that really need this type of health care service. And so they can have a greater impact down the road in that way. Now, even from you like talking about this right now, I, I didn't even like realize that there are counties like here in Kentucky that there really isn't much like help in that.

00;06;50;00 - 00;07;21;28
Unknown
That's what we need. So it's I mean, even me, like I didn't even realize that. So yeah, I think that's why we have these conversations, right? I mean, that's that's why it's important to spread the word. Yeah. And maybe motivate, encourage people to pursue these kinds of careers that can help. So I have some data that shows that overall mortality rates are significantly greater in eastern Kentucky compared to the rest of the state, which is an indicator of the number of health problems that the the region has.

00;07;22;01 - 00;07;44;28
Unknown
You know, in addition to having overall cancer mortality rates that are greater. So we need desperately need more health care activities occurring in that area to help with the overall health disparities. And then specifically for us, it's cancer. So what led you to ultimately create this program? And I mean, you've had 157 students that have been impacted by this.

00;07;44;28 - 00;08;09;10
Unknown
So kind of what led you to do this? That's a great question. How much time do we have? So as I mentioned before, I was, undergraduate here. I'm originally from Tennessee. I grew up in a rural Appalachian county in Tennessee, about two hours south of Nashville. So it's in the middle of nowhere. First generation college student. So my dad only had an eighth grade education.

00;08;09;10 - 00;08;37;29
Unknown
My mom had a high school education. And, I'm just kind of recently actually learning about my, economic growing up economics of the family. And it turns out we were pretty low income, which I didn't really realize. And I think in part that's because everybody where I'm from live the same way. So I didn't really realize, like economically, how we compared to others because everybody, almost everybody was in our same situation.

00;08;37;29 - 00;09;05;28
Unknown
So, you know, low income first generation student. So from a academic standpoint, I can see the need for helping students in rural areas first in low income or just rural in general, the need for these kinds of programs, because students from these areas don't have these opportunities. Right. Where I went to high school, there were no AP classes, there were no opportunities to do dual enrollment.

00;09;05;28 - 00;09;31;26
Unknown
And a program like this can be hugely transformational for students that don't have those opportunities. Right? So, that was one reason. But then it turns out both of my parents have had cancer. So my dad passed away of lung cancer in 2010, and my mom has had breast cancer twice now. And she survived both times. So from a cancer perspective, personally, I was very motivated for that reason also.

00;09;31;28 - 00;09;39;04
Unknown
I'm so sorry, but thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Thank you.

00;09;39;06 - 00;10;03;08
Unknown
Oh, your podcast is supported by UK research, the Office of Undergraduate Research and the Media Depot. To add on to your experience, was UK receptive to the idea? How was the idea kind of brought into action? No pun intended. Yeah. Oh that's good. I like that. So, the program is housed in the Marquee Cancer Center here.

00;10;03;08 - 00;10;36;04
Unknown
So the Marquee Cancer Center is a national cancer institute designated Comprehensive cancer center. So this is like, it's a big, big deal. There's only like, 72 institutions, academic institutions that have this designation in the country. Maybe it's 73. It's somewhere in that ballpark. So it's the premier cancer center in the state. And having that designation comes with an understanding that the cancer center does many different comprehensive activities to help address the cancer needs of the state.

00;10;36;07 - 00;11;03;20
Unknown
One of those activities is education training. The next generation of cancer professionals. So the cancer center is, very supportive of the program, all the different aspects that I mentioned research, education, clinical shadowing, outreach, all those things can occur because of the comprehensive nature of the cancer center. We're doing all these activities that are already sort of under the cancer center umbrella.

00;11;03;20 - 00;11;34;04
Unknown
So creating action was actually pretty easy under all those activities that already occur. So the director of the cancer center, doctor Mark Evers, very supportive of cancer education, very supportive of developing this program, giving us almost every resource that we could possibly dream of to create the program and sustain it over time. Now that's really great because I feel like sometimes at a university level, it's hard to start something that big in that impactful.

00;11;34;04 - 00;11;51;19
Unknown
So it's great that they were on board with that and very supportive. Absolutely. Rebecca, could you kind of go into the research that you're doing and how maybe action has really helped you do that? Yeah. So coming from a rural area, I'm sort of like what Doctor Random for was talking about, I didn't really have any options for research.

00;11;51;26 - 00;12;07;28
Unknown
So coming into college, none of my family was in healthcare either, so I really had no idea what I was doing. So actually provided me with a lot of resources and just the guidance on how to be able to do research in undergrad in the first place. And so for me, I'm more interested in, in ophthalmology and sort of cancer related to that.

00;12;07;28 - 00;12;23;28
Unknown
So I was placed in Doctor Morris's zebrafish laboratory, investigate the retina of zebrafish because they're able to regenerate the retina while humans can't. So being able to, sort of uncover why they're able to do that and apply it to humans can sort of help in a lot of different, diseases with the eye, but also potentially cancer.

00;12;24;00 - 00;12;41;18
Unknown
So it's been really great. I've learned a lot of lab techniques because before coming there, I had, no experience in a lab. So I've learned so much on just how to, do certain lab techniques, but also just the general research process in general. With analyzing data, collecting it and presenting it, it's very exciting. Yes.

00;12;41;21 - 00;13;04;22
Unknown
I think Rebecca's story here is, is like classic of what we would love to see. So you have a student who's interested in a particular career field, ophthalmology, getting her placed in a lab that does ophthalmology related research directly connected with the career path that she wants to pursue. That's what we hope to do, right? And I think she's had a phenomenal experience.

00;13;04;22 - 00;13;23;19
Unknown
And and as we talk maybe a little bit more about the book, you'll hear maybe some of her story in the book, which is also connected to ophthalmology in a cool way. So you work with zebrafish? Yeah. That's great. So is it like different like I was I was that process. Yeah. It was really different because I never worked with animals before.

00;13;23;19 - 00;13;40;09
Unknown
Yeah. So it is interesting. There are certain, things we do, by looking at their eyes, like sectioning the eyes and things like that usually do with embryos. So they're like really, really tiny. And this is a lot of very specific, like, techniques have to be very careful. Like recently I just want to do cryo sectioning.

00;13;40;09 - 00;14;00;08
Unknown
So that's where you have to take very, tiny slices of sections. Which is really cool, like -20 degrees. So, it's a lot of very complicated, and it takes me a long time to be able to learn the techniques and, gather any data to try and get a conclusion from. But yeah, it's really, challenged me a lot, but I've learned so many, like, valuable lessons from it and enjoyed it.

00;14;00;11 - 00;14;29;05
Unknown
Yeah, that's very interesting, I love that. Yeah, it sounds so fascinating. And I think being able to learn crazy skills like that, that you never even thought you would get out of your college experience is pretty, pretty amazing. So definitely because of action and getting involved in research, has that led you to any other opportunities in research? Yeah, so so far I'm not present at a general UK event, but I have every at the end of every semester, I present to the other lab members and a few other members in a different lab, our findings.

00;14;29;05 - 00;14;46;19
Unknown
And so it's given me the opportunity to so know how to present in front of people like, the data and trying to explain it in a way that people can understand because it's sort of like confusing the science that we're dealing with because it's on a genetic level. But this upcoming semester, I'm gonna be doing my thesis for the honors college, and so I'm gonna be doing that through the lab.

00;14;46;19 - 00;15;04;23
Unknown
And then part of that thesis is where I will be presenting at, something with a UK, like a bigger, research opportunity. So how are you feeling about all that career? Oh, this year? Oh, and there is. I'm still in the process of getting the data, and I haven't started making, like, my poster yet, but I'm excited because I haven't done it on a bigger level yet.

00;15;04;23 - 00;15;22;09
Unknown
So being able to have a more professional looking poster, I'm excited for it. So yes, there's a lot to you. Thank you. Doctor Rainford, would you please go into the book and what the processes with that or what it is. Yeah. So I think we're going to talk more about it in the next episode. So I won't give it all away now.

00;15;22;09 - 00;15;54;20
Unknown
But we've published four books now where we've had students tell stories about cancer in eastern Kentucky. Basically, the first two books were real personal stories about cancer. The more recent two books, students wrote realistic fictional stories about cancer in eastern Kentucky. So that's sort of the general overview. And then we have a student here that can talk about her story, and it's really cool, as I mentioned before, about how her story connects to her desired career path and the research that she's done.

00;15;54;22 - 00;16;11;13
Unknown
Yeah. So for my story, when I was beginning, to write it and think about how I was going to have it all laid out, I really draw on my experiences from growing up in eastern Kentucky and sort of seeing the, health impacts that can happen, like the barriers from living in a rural area. And so that was mainly from like my family.

00;16;11;13 - 00;16;29;18
Unknown
I had a grandfather that had leukemia. And even beyond that cancer, just seeing how, you have to travel really far away just to get care. So I sort of drew on that, and also just other health behaviors I saw in my town, with like my brother, he, she was tobacco. So some of the parts in my stories mainly about that I in cancer.

00;16;29;18 - 00;16;49;24
Unknown
But, there was a part about tobacco as well. So just sort of incorporating the barriers and health behaviors that I've seen really led my story. And also, the volunteering that I've done as an undergrad, seeing things like the whole pleasure, the family room where, people from rural areas, they use those resources to, be able to like, get food or housing while they're there for cancer treatments.

00;16;49;27 - 00;17;09;06
Unknown
So that's how I was able to write my story. That sounds like a really great opportunity to be able to share that and have it in a book, and be able to actually get that out to a community where it will be impactful. So then go back and help. So we really appreciate you. Sure. Thank you. Well, thank you all so much for being on this episode today.

00;17;09;06 - 00;17;24;16
Unknown
We really appreciate you all coming to talk about action and share your stories. Yeah. Thanks again for having us. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Connect with us on social media and learn more about this episode in the description. Stay tuned for more!

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;26;13
Unknown
Hello and welcome to the Oh You Are a podcast. We are proud to announce the partnership with the office of the Vice President for research. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Oh You Are podcast. I'm Aaron and I'm Serena. And today on the podcast we have Doctor Tilson. Hi everyone. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much for joining us.

00;00;26;13 - 00;00;54;00
Unknown
It's an absolute pleasure to have you here today. So just to kind of start off with some kind of basic introductory questions, can we just get a little bit of your backstory, what kind of research you do? Absolutely. So I am currently I'm serving as a research scientist at the University of Kentucky Center on Drug and Alcohol Research, and I have worked with the center for about the past nine years, which is kind of wild to think about that and so on.

00;00;54;00 - 00;01;16;15
Unknown
And my research focuses on substance use disorder and related risks, especially, services, treatment services and recovery support services that can help people to, resolve their substance use problems. So how did you kind of get started with this research? Oh, well, I took a very nontraditional path to get to, my work in research, and I actually.

00;01;16;18 - 00;01;36;09
Unknown
So I was a nontraditional student. I went to University of Kentucky for my undergrad and my master's, my doctoral program. But before I came to UK, I had actually tried to go to college a few other times before that and a few other places, and I was just not successful. The other times that I tried to go to school.

00;01;36;09 - 00;02;05;13
Unknown
And I think part of the issue that I was facing is that I was interested in everything, but I don't think I was really passionate about anything. And I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. I didn't really feel like I had a lot of direction. So after this first couple of attempts at college, I actually left school, and I started hitchhiking and traveling around the country and riding freight trains and really getting to see the rest of the country.

00;02;05;13 - 00;02;23;17
Unknown
I didn't grow up in Kentucky. I grew up in the New England area and and felt like I was from a very small, small town, a very close knit area, that there was really so much more that I wanted to see and experience. So I got to travel, I got to see a lot of things. I got to meet a lot of different people, but I also there were a lot of challenges that I faced.

00;02;23;17 - 00;02;48;23
Unknown
I struggled with issues of substance use myself. I had a history of criminal legal system involvements. I was unhoused for this whole time. In the process of getting back on my feet after I had faced all those issues was challenging, and that was brought me to Lexington in the first place, was because this seemed like a good place for me to settle down and try to get back on my feet.

00;02;48;25 - 00;03;23;27
Unknown
And so I arrived in Lexington and I started working in restaurants and washing dishes. Just because that's what you do when you don't have a job. History and paper. And I decided that I wanted to get back into school. Because I felt like, you know, having had personal experience with substance use problems and having that many of the people in my life that I've loved and I've cared about have those issues as well, I really felt motivated to try to work towards finding a solution to that and finding a way to to help people, with the issues that I had experience.

00;03;23;29 - 00;03;49;06
Unknown
I started out at CTC to have community and technical college, and I was working on my prerequisites to, get back into school. And then I transferred to UK with a double a dual degree, actually, not just a double major, but a dual degree in psychology and social work. And most of my time I spent in the College of Social Work, and I got into social work because I really thought that I wanted to do direct practice, right.

00;03;49;06 - 00;04;07;00
Unknown
I wanted to be a social worker. I wanted to be a counselor. I wanted to do one on one counseling with people that had substance use problems. And I really thought that's what I wanted to do. And very early on in this social work program, through experiences in Practicums and through my coursework, I realized that this is really not for me.

00;04;07;00 - 00;04;26;11
Unknown
Right? The principles of social work and the social justice orientation, I that very much resonated with me and I left that. But the actual process of of one on one counseling I found really challenging because I have a big heart and I have terrible boundaries, and I just knew that I was going to have my heart broken every single day.

00;04;26;11 - 00;04;47;23
Unknown
So I was actually, speaking to the advisor in the College of Social Work at the time, and she said, have you ever considered research? And I said, no, what do you mean, research in social work and substance use? And she said, yes, we actually have a faculty member in the College of Social Work who does this sort of research.

00;04;47;23 - 00;05;06;09
Unknown
And I really think you should go talk to her. So I did. I emailed her out of the blue. This is Doctor Michelle Stayton. If anyone should get a gold star for being a fabulous research mentor, it is definitely her. And I set up a meeting with her, and I walked into her office and said, I think I'd be interested in doing substance use research.

00;05;06;09 - 00;05;33;25
Unknown
And she said, well, okay. Can you tell me a little bit about your research experience? And I said, absolutely none. I've never done research before. I barely read any research papers, but I just really think I would like to try this. And she gave me an opportunity. We are working on an independent study together to, where I was developing a poster that I was going to present at the spring conference for the UK Center on Clinical and Translational Science.

00;05;33;27 - 00;05;59;24
Unknown
And I put together that poster, and I remember going to the conference and presenting that poster, and it was like a light bulb moment for me, because getting to stand next to that poster and have people come up and talk to me and be interested about substance use, be interested about that. The poster was really focused on women and girls and substance use in the in the juvenile justice system, in the criminal legal system.

00;05;59;26 - 00;06;14;27
Unknown
And to have people come up to me, people that I had never met before that were interested in these issues and passionate about these issues and wanted to talk about solutions, it was just so validating for me in it, and it really confirmed that this is where I wanted to be and what I wanted to be doing.

00;06;14;29 - 00;06;35;26
Unknown
That's such an incredible story of finding your purpose, is there. I know you kind of touched on this, but how do you hope your research will affect others? So substance use disorder is such a major issue in our country and around the world. Absolutely. But I mean, over 40 million people in the United States have a substance use disorder.

00;06;35;26 - 00;07;02;07
Unknown
Only a very small fraction of those millions of people are actually receiving treatment for their substance use, or any kind of recovery support services to help them. Substance use disorder is also associated with a whole host of physical and mental health issues, criminal legal system involvement that can follow people's or her entire lives. And of course, you know, the over 100,000 overdose fatalities that we have annually in our country.

00;07;02;07 - 00;07;29;08
Unknown
So I really hope that that my research will be able to kind of this is such a huge issue. We really need all hands on deck for it. But I do hope that my research can be kind of a small drop in the bucket contributing to this. And I also really hope that by sharing my story and sharing my experience as a person who is myself in recovery from substance use disorder and doing this research, that it can also combat some of the stigma that surrounds substance use disorder.

00;07;29;08 - 00;07;51;25
Unknown
Because I think that sometimes people see folks who are in active addiction and might not think very highly of them, but the fact is that people in active addiction do recover, and in recovery anything is really possible. And you can go on to do whatever you want. So that's really inspiring. Yes, that's so meaningful because, you know, as you said, this is a very kind of underserved community at the moment.

00;07;51;25 - 00;08;19;14
Unknown
And so, so and it's so impactful that you're doing this kind of work. Now, how have you kind of incorporated some of your creative interests into your research? I love that you ask that. So actually, the first time that I tried going to college, I was 17, I want to say I graduated early. I wanted to be a creative writer, and I wanted to major in creative writing, and I wanted to be a novelist.

00;08;19;14 - 00;08;43;20
Unknown
I wanted to write short stories, I wanted to write plays. And I did a lot of writing throughout my early college and even throughout my active addiction and all of my travels. But when I came back to UK and I started in social work, writing was was kind of something that I had lost touch with. And I remember I was actually talking to my mom one time and she said, I was so sad you wanted to be a writer and you're not a writer.

00;08;43;23 - 00;09;09;09
Unknown
I thought about it and I was like, actually, I am, because the research, as we know, involves a lot of writing. If you don't like writing, research might not be for, you know, but so I writing papers, writing or writing presentations, communicating science, I think that there's a lot of creativity that goes into that. I think that it is a form of storytelling.

00;09;09;09 - 00;09;27;20
Unknown
Right. Because you have to have you have to have rigorous methodology. You have to be a communicator, clearly and scientifically, but you also have to be crafting a compelling narrative. You have to explain to your readers and to your audience members why they should care about these issues, why they're important, and make them feel empowered to be able to do something about it.

00;09;27;20 - 00;09;53;09
Unknown
And so I feel like I have still taken some of that into my work to this day, because that's one of my favorite things about research that I do is communicating the research findings and to diverse audiences, right? So not just to the scientific community or to students, but then also thinking about community members. Right. I did a pilot study recently that was focused on voices of Hope, which is one of our local recovery community centers.

00;09;53;12 - 00;10;23;14
Unknown
And I was recruiting participants through voices of Hope and when I finished, I actually organized a community session. I brought a bunch of pizza and I put together a slideshow, and then I presented the research findings back to the study participants or anyone else from the community who's interested. And I remember that being so. It was kind of a unique experience that I hadn't really done before that to really think about how do I talk about this research to the people that were involved in this research as participants?

00;10;23;14 - 00;10;47;20
Unknown
Right, because they have a different understanding of it. And it's going to have a different sort of meaning to them. So I think that that's that's really important as well. Oh my gosh. So you really you go above and beyond like for kind of communicating your research. That's fun. Yeah, I love it. I mean because I also remember like being an active addiction and actually being a research participant myself on different studies.

00;10;47;20 - 00;11;10;12
Unknown
I, I have no idea. It took me actually a very long time to find the results of those studies because I just I didn't know I didn't have a good Stem. I think of what the big picture of those those studies were right. I did the research interview and I got the compensation and I did my follow up interviews, and I was a very good participant.

00;11;10;14 - 00;11;40;10
Unknown
But I also didn't really understand, like, why are you doing this research? And like for the person sitting across the table from me, the research, like, why do you care? Why are you here? And what do you hope to accomplish by this research? So I think that that's something that I try to be very, very mindful of in my own work is making sure that the folks that I work with as participants on this studies have a good idea of who I am and why I think this work is important, and also what I hope the work is going to accomplish, because you have those two kind of perspectives where now it's like

00;11;40;10 - 00;12;11;18
Unknown
the tables have turned and you're on the other side. Yes, exactly. I think it's so great that you're being so transparent with your participants, because I'm sure it makes them more inspired to help out with the kind of research. Yeah, yeah. And it's definitely I feel like. But I was only in my research career, I think some of the early guidance that I may have gotten was to try to be more impartial and not share as much about who I was, because you don't want to bias your participants responses, right?

00;12;11;18 - 00;12;37;07
Unknown
You don't want to say something about yourself that's going to make them think that you're going to think about them a certain way if they say something. And so there was I had a lot of caution about that in the beginning. But sometimes, you know, doing research about sensitive subjects like substance use, I remember being in an interview with a research participant and for the first time, she just flat out asked me, she's like, have you ever been addicted before?

00;12;37;09 - 00;13;02;07
Unknown
Like, have you ever actually had to, like, be an addiction before? And I took a deep breath. I was like, I feel like I should really be honest in this situation. And I said yes. And I shared some of my experience with her, and the entire interview changed, but it changed for the better, because before that point, she'd been very guarded and she'd been very hesitant and, you know, skipping a lot of the questions because she didn't want to talk about it.

00;13;02;07 - 00;13;26;11
Unknown
And she just opened up completely after that because there could be that trust, because I had shared something with her. So I think I, I think there's a, there's a time and place. But I do think that it's important, especially when it's, you know, something that, can be so stigmatizing, like substance use. You don't want to feel like there's, there's this power differential between researchers up here and then the participants over here.

00;13;26;13 - 00;13;56;11
Unknown
It's it's nice to kind of level the playing field. I think. Thank you to The Media Depot for giving us a place to record the podcast. Check out their Instagram at Media Depot and website. It's Dot Ukiah. Edu. Amy Media Depot to view all of their services. That makes research that much more accessible and makes it kind of seamless, like this high up and very academic pursuit and more something that's very passion based and that's wonderful.

00;13;56;11 - 00;14;19;29
Unknown
Yes. Yeah, exactly. You took that first step to make it more accessible, making more people involved. And that's just so inspiring. Yes. Yeah, I love that. And there's a whole field of community based participatory research that I don't know if you guys have have talked very much about it, but that I try to incorporate a lot of those principles and principles into my work.

00;14;20;01 - 00;14;41;26
Unknown
And that extends to both the individual participants, but then also to organizations that I might want to partner with, you know, so if I wanted to do a research study, in collaboration with, like a local substance use treatment provider, I would want to spend a lot of time talking to that provider before starting the research study to say, well, this is what I think that we should be looking at, but I want to know what you care about, right?

00;14;41;26 - 00;15;03;03
Unknown
Like you guys are the ones who are boots on the ground with your clients every single day. You see the problems that they're facing. You see the difficulties and the challenges. What do you see as the priority areas and really getting that that investment. But it also just makes for better research, right. Because you're actually researching things that matter to the people that are impacted by it.

00;15;03;05 - 00;15;23;15
Unknown
So if you had to kind of give any advice to somebody who might be thinking about going into research, but is kind of scared to go over that initial hurdle, what advice would you give them? I think everybody should try research at least once. I know that it's not going to be for everybody. And I think that that's one of the wonderful things.

00;15;23;15 - 00;15;52;14
Unknown
And this is me speaking from my background. In social work for undergrad. Right. That I was, you know, maybe 1 or 2 people in my whole class were interested in research or macro level things, and there were a whole bunch of people that were coming at similar issues and similar problem problems from a direct service perspective. So if you have an issue that you're passionate about or a problem that you want to solve, there are a whole bunch of different ways that you can go about addressing that issue.

00;15;52;14 - 00;16;11;19
Unknown
Research is one of those tools that we have. It's one of those approaches, but it's not the only one. But I do think that no matter what kind of an approach you take to the problems and the issues that you're passionate about, having an understanding of what research involves and why research is important and how to be an intelligent consumer of research.

00;16;11;21 - 00;16;44;17
Unknown
I think it's going to benefit anybody, no matter, no matter what they're focusing on. But I do think that, research really surprised me. I think that I was very intimidated by getting into research. I didn't think, you know, all the researchers that I knew were so smart. And I would read their papers, and their papers were so smart and so important, and I felt so seen and so recognized seeing these these very smart academic things being written about, like, problems that I had personally experienced.

00;16;44;19 - 00;17;06;08
Unknown
And that was very important to me. But I definitely I think imposter syndrome is a very, very real thing, in all levels of academia. But, I think it goes all the way up. It's great that you mentioned that imposter syndrome is really common, because I feel like that's what is scaring a lot of people who think that they might want to be in research, but think that they won't fit in or something like that.

00;17;06;08 - 00;17;25;16
Unknown
So that's some amazing advice. Yeah, yeah. And something else that I really love about research too, and that I think has kind of helped, at least with my own imposter syndrome, is understanding that research really is a team sport. And so when I was starting in research and I was like, oh, I, I really don't feel confident about my statistical skills.

00;17;25;19 - 00;17;46;19
Unknown
Right? I didn't have to be because, again, it's a team sport. If I have like a vision for a paper that I want to write and I know a lot about the background literature, and I have a colleague who is really strong at statistics, and they can do the analysis for me. And then somebody else who wants to think about the the implications for policy and practice, and they can write the discussion section of the paper.

00;17;46;19 - 00;18;10;10
Unknown
And, and that's expected and it's common and it's not really expected that anybody is going to be an expert in all aspects of research. And so I think that helped me. It's knowing that it's, it's a good thing that we're all doing research together and that everybody does kind of have their own skill areas and their own their, specific focus is, to be able to collaborate with each other.

00;18;10;12 - 00;18;29;19
Unknown
You cannot do everything by yourself. Yet, even if you think you can not. It's so true. So kind of going back to your whole kind of journey that you've taken to this path and research which has been so fruitful and incredible to hear about today. Where do you think you're going to go in the future with this research?

00;18;29;19 - 00;18;59;03
Unknown
Do you have any future goals or plans that you're working on right now? So many, so many. One thing that my research has been focusing on lately that I am, I'm very, very excited about, is thinking about substance use disorder and the services that we use to support people that are experiencing substance use issues. There are a lot of a lot of the research and a lot of the funding and practice today has been supporting clinical substance use treatment services.

00;18;59;03 - 00;19;23;03
Unknown
And so what I mean by that is like somebody going to a quote unquote rehab or a detox program, an inpatient residential program where they stay for 30 days or six months, but they live in the program and they go to classes, they meet with a clinician or an intensive outpatient program, which is similar. You know, there's a trained and licensed clinician who's running these groups and teaching these classes.

00;19;23;05 - 00;19;51;11
Unknown
And it's very much services that are being taught by clinically certified experts. And there's been a movement, it's a very old movement. But it's kind of started to get more recognition lately, a more research focus on it around more kind of grassroots, what we call recovery support services. So these are not necessarily services that are led by someone with clinical training, but they're services that can be read by people who have lived experience with these issues.

00;19;51;13 - 00;20;12;14
Unknown
And in particular, a lot of my recent work has been focused on peer recovery support specialists. I hope you guys have heard of peer support specialist before the state of Kentucky does have a program that certifies peer support. So this is a legitimate profession, with a certification program in the state of Kentucky. And these are employment positions.

00;20;12;14 - 00;20;39;08
Unknown
So, historically there has been like peer to peer support that has happened, you know, for like a year and a or 12 step fellowships. There's a sponsor or for smart recovery meetings, people have mentor people just informally mentor each other, I think. But peer recovery support specialists are it's an amazing concept because not only is it legitimized through the certification program, but it's also compensated as a paid position.

00;20;39;10 - 00;20;59;16
Unknown
And I think that that that makes a really big difference to recognize and legitimize the expertise of these folks. So they do have very extensive training. The state certification program, I think is currently only a 30 hour requirement, but a lot of the organizations, when they hire peers, have their own intensive onboarding process, and there's ongoing supervision.

00;20;59;16 - 00;21;25;17
Unknown
And it is very much like you would expect, like a social worker in the field to be experiencing. So that's something that I love about it, is that it's again, it's paid, it's certified, it's legitimized. But it also is a way of recognizing that lived experience matters. Right. And it does make a difference having somebody in these positions that can say, I've been sitting in your seat, you know, I have been where you are and I can be I can create hope for you.

00;21;25;19 - 00;21;50;23
Unknown
I can be a role model for you because you can see what's possible in recovery. And it removes some of that stigma, lets people know that they're not being judged in those positions. I think that there's just so much power around that. So a lot of my recent work has really been more focused on on the role of peer recovery support specialists, on the impact of their services on, on people that participate in those services and all the different settings that they work in.

00;21;50;23 - 00;22;13;11
Unknown
A lot of peers are working in recovery community centers or other substance use disorder treatment, settings. But there's also programs that have peers embedded in like emergency departments or jails or prisons and really getting peers out into different spaces in the community where they can have further reach for folks that could benefit. I think that's amazing. That is amazing.

00;22;13;14 - 00;22;46;19
Unknown
Yeah, it really is very inspiring. Thank you. That's kind of a common theme of today is, you know, having people that can have these authentic experiences and they can take those perspectives into other aspects of their life to kind of, you know, have a ripple effect on everyone else. Yeah. That's wonderful. I think that's so important. And if I could give advice to anybody considering a career in research, it would be to find something that you care about.

00;22;46;22 - 00;23;15;09
Unknown
Because research is hard. Research is really hard. You guys. It's not easy. There's a lot of rejection. You know, I have papers that have been rejected like five times over. You apply for funding and your funding application gets shot down and there can be a lot of no's, and there can be a lot of challenges, even when you're when you have a study that's ongoing and you're and you're trying to do it and do a good job, it can be really difficult.

00;23;15;09 - 00;23;42;06
Unknown
But I think being able to be working in research on something that you know, is important and that you believe is valuable, I think that that can really for me, that is sustained me through some very challenging periods in my research career is is knowing that this is this is worth it and it matters. I think it's really great that you mention that because I agree research can be really hard, but if you have that passion, it keeps pushing you to go further with it.

00;23;42;09 - 00;24;03;05
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. I actually like to, keep physical reminders in my workspace. I have I found that that's really helpful. So, you know, I have like little quotes that I've written down for myself or pictures of people that I've cared about over the years, just things in my workspace that are going to remind me what I'm like, really down in the weeds with someone else.

00;24;03;05 - 00;24;28;10
Unknown
These are like an hour, an hour for a paper, things that are going to remind me. So I know that earlier you had talked about some stigma that you had not only seen, but also kind of personally experienced. As someone who's been on, you know, both sides of the story in this research that you do, is there any kind of misconception that you think could be handled differently regarding this specific research topic that you do?

00;24;28;13 - 00;25;04;08
Unknown
I am so glad that you brought up stigma. Again, I know that I mentioned stigma earlier, but this is just this is something that I feel I feel so passionate about because I think people forget what is universal issues, substance use and substance use disorder is I mean, it impacts everybody. I know I said over 40 million people before, but if you think about it, you know, pretty much everybody has if they've not been personally impacted, they have people they love that have been personally impacted or they know somebody within a few degrees of separation.

00;25;04;10 - 00;25;33;13
Unknown
So this really is a universal problem. And it amazes me that in spite of the fact that so many people struggle with this every day, it is still so stigmatized, and people still look at substance use and substance use disorder like this is a moral failing, like this is a bad choice that somebody's made, right? Instead of acknowledging that this is a this is a disorder, I this is a chronic and relapsing condition.

00;25;33;16 - 00;26;10;03
Unknown
This is also a societal condition. When we look at the circumstances of poverty and marginalization by my background as a sociologist is showing right now. But, you know, we also create these social circumstances that I think make substance use, more of an issue for some demographics in some populations than others. And so I think that the way that we handle substance use, one of the things that I have tried to do in my own work is to really just be open about it, because I have not always been open about my own lived experience in a research space.

00;26;10;03 - 00;26;37;28
Unknown
I think about when I first started, and especially when I was in my undergraduate, I didn't really share about it. And early on in my master's program, I wasn't really sharing about it because I was very, I was very cognizant of the fact that people might look at me differently and that people might treat me differently and that people might look down on me, or people might discount the work that I'm doing and saying, oh, she's just doing my research, right.

00;26;37;28 - 00;27;12;22
Unknown
It's not real research. And I, I understand I have a lot of empathy for, for my younger self and why she made those decisions. But I'm also really glad that I'm at a point now in my career where I can share about these things and I can hopefully create a space for younger colleagues and younger researchers that are coming up that do have those kinds of personal experiences, and that those experiences are a part of what brings them to this work as well, but that they don't necessarily have a place to be able to share that.

00;27;12;24 - 00;27;38;14
Unknown
And so I think it's just very important for people to be able to, to talk about this and to talk about this without feeling that stigma. Every time that I share with people about what I do, I would say maybe about 80% of the time when I say I'm a substance use researcher and I'm a person in recovery, someone will say like, oh, I'm in recovery too, or oh, my son's in recovery, or oh, I lost a sibling to an overdose, right.

00;27;38;14 - 00;28;11;11
Unknown
You know, and it's just amazing the degree to which people are impacted by this. So I think that there, there needs to be more acknowledgment of the fact that and especially that this is an invisible stigma. I think that that that's one of the fundamental issues here is that if you are in a room and you are talking about substance use disorder and you are using stigmatizing terminology, or you are speaking disparagingly or bullying, belittling of people with substance use disorders, you don't know who you're talking to in that room.

00;28;11;11 - 00;28;32;08
Unknown
You could be talking to someone who is experiencing that issue in that moment. You could be talking to somebody who had a parent with that problem, and you're talking about their parent. You're talking about them, you're talking about their sibling. And so I think that it's it's really important to recognize not only that this is such a stigmatized condition, but it's stigmatized in ways that, that we can't even see.

00;28;32;11 - 00;29;13;15
Unknown
That that is something that I really hope that my work is, is going to have an impact on. I do have a research project that I will be starting this summer that is actually specifically focused on substance use disorder stigma, and coming at it from an intersectional perspective. So thinking about how is the stigma related to substance use disorder different for somebody who might be of a racial or ethnic minority background or who might be, woman versus a man, or from another marginalized gender identity, thinking about people who have used drugs during pregnancy or who have used drugs while they were parenting, and how that's a differently stigmatized experience.

00;29;13;18 - 00;29;37;20
Unknown
And thinking about describing this stigma, but also looking at how people manage the stigma and how they become resilient to that stigma. Because I think that that's that's one of the things I love about about substance use disorder research is oftentimes the people experiencing these issues have figured out solutions to these problems. We don't always need to be coming in as researchers and saying, this is how you fix it.

00;29;37;20 - 00;29;53;09
Unknown
I have the solution, right? Sometimes we just need to sit back and listen to people and say, what's worked for you? Okay, that sounds really that sounds like a great idea. How can we scale that up? How can we make that bigger? How can we make it reproducible so that other people can can have access to the solution as well?

00;29;53;12 - 00;30;33;01
Unknown
I, I was speechless. That was amazing. Yes, truly I, I feel so honored. This is truly been a wonderful podcast episode. No thank you. So is there something interesting like a hobby that you have? Kind of unrelated to your research that you'd like to share? Yes, there are actually a couple. And it's funny, I was thinking about this and they all kind of tie back to my research in some way, shape or form, but so, so doing research as I've kind of moved up in my career as a researcher, I started out doing interviews with research participants and then, you know, doing more administrative tasks and then analyzing data.

00;30;33;01 - 00;30;59;24
Unknown
And now I'm in a scientist position, right. So I'm like writing the grants and writing the papers. And I've kind of gotten separated in a lot of ways from the communities that I want to work with and the people that I want to work with. So I decided recently that I wanted to start volunteering more, and especially volunteering, with organizations that are kind of aligned with my goals and my values and my mission.

00;30;59;26 - 00;31;25;15
Unknown
So I started volunteering recently with voices of Hope, that recovery community center that I love. They're down on Broadway here in Lexington, and voices. There have been two primary ways that I've been volunteering with them lately. One, I love making bread. I love making bread. I bake other things too, but bread is kind of my favorite. And they have a monthly community meal.

00;31;25;18 - 00;31;48;22
Unknown
So if you're ever interested in contributing food to the community meal or, stopping by to serve folks at the community meal, they're always encouraged to do that. But I usually bake bread and my partner will make some kind of a food, and we'll bring it down there for the community meal. We also have an organizing with a new arts and crafts night at the Recovery Community Center.

00;31;48;22 - 00;32;14;00
Unknown
So crafting has actually been something that has sustained me through my recovery, through my undergrad, through my graduate program. I'm primarily a knitter, so I actually made this sweater that I'm wearing today. No way around here. But it's the best compliment amateur can receive. It's so the thing. Oh, that's really nice. And getting to say, oh, I made it think.

00;32;14;03 - 00;32;33;11
Unknown
Yes. Instead of thinking about how important crafting and knitting was to me, I was like, I want to be able to give other people an outlet to be able to do this, too, because like, craft supplies don't have to be expensive. You know, you can get a skinny yarn and some knitting needles for like five bucks at Walmart if you just want something to get started and keep your hands busy.

00;32;33;11 - 00;33;07;25
Unknown
So we've been organizing monthly craft nights, the recovery center, and they have been so much fun. I've really been loving doing those. So I think that volunteering has been really great. I also have three dogs currently. Yeah, I am a dog mom. I have loved dogs forever. And actually I had a dog that I hitchhiked with all over the country, and she was kind of a got me to settle down in Lexington because she was getting older.

00;33;07;25 - 00;33;29;23
Unknown
She'd recently had a litter of puppies, and I said, I want to give my dog a better life. I want to give her a house and a couch. And so I did all of those things, and she stayed with me through my whole undergrad and my whole graduate school. Her name was ruckus, and she passed away right after I defended my dissertation.

00;33;29;23 - 00;33;55;07
Unknown
So she saw me, like all the way through to the end. Yeah. So that's kind of a bummer now, but. Oh, I know right? Oh gosh. And I saw her. Yeah. I'm sorry to like, whatever you kind of. Yeah. She's under your bed too. Yeah, yeah. This is this is hers apartment with the same. Are you two.

00;33;55;09 - 00;34;15;08
Unknown
Oh, yeah. And I was always, like, locked away and just sitting there and, like, I'm not going to speak, you know, I didn't read to you, but she's like, I was texting her and only ever gotten on the same arm as my cat. That happened to like, a little, oh my gosh, I got this last February. And then we got a third cat really like.

00;34;15;08 - 00;34;39;03
Unknown
And then he's going to like, bring him and or us, tattooed on his heart to like, magic. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's kind of where the house is. Yeah, I like it. I held it together the first time, but that story about. Oh, I definitely got her tattooed. Just as kind of like the tattoo artist had an appointment, like, two weeks after she passed.

00;34;39;03 - 00;34;59;12
Unknown
And so I just, like, did it without thinking, and it was perfect. But after this first one, I was like, I'm gonna have a lot more dogs. I already have a lot more dogs. Where am I gonna put them? Because I have to get that as well. So I just started I have the basset hound over here, and then this is going to be kind of the hound arm, because we get a lot of hounds.

00;34;59;12 - 00;35;18;25
Unknown
And then this is going to be the weird mutt arm. We have the highest of seven. I'm 57. I'm busy. I a lot of those Delmonico guys. Yeah. So I love my dogs. And I do also love bicycles. So I, when I first moved to Lexington, there was a nonprofit community bike shop called Broke Stoke.

00;35;18;27 - 00;35;44;19
Unknown
It's down by West Fix Brewing, if anybody knows where that is. By Brooks Stoke. I am I actually used their sweat equity program when I first moved to Lexington. So they have a program where if you don't have money to purchase a bike, they will let you volunteer your time and they will pay you for your time in credits towards a bike or parts for a bike or stand time to work on your bike.

00;35;44;21 - 00;36;04;27
Unknown
And so I visited bricks very early on, but I moved here, got a bike, use that bike to get to my job washing dishes. I'm working in kitchens for my classes for bike, and I bike commuted all the way up until Covid when I stopped commuting anywhere. And I now get to serve on the board of directors.

00;36;04;27 - 00;36;26;07
Unknown
And actually this year I am president of the Board of directors for Brit folks. So it is a wonderful organization, right? I actually strongly encourage folks to go check it out if they're interested. I think that it checks a lot of boxes as far as sustainable transportation and exercise, but then also, empowering people to be able to maintain their own transportation.

00;36;26;09 - 00;36;48;10
Unknown
Really great organization. Now, you mentioned that you do craft nights with voices of Hope. Yeah. If you're ever looking for like, cheap craft supplies, there is a organization in Lexington called Lex Creative Reuse. And also yeah, yeah, they have similar to that. Guess I so they have like arts of fliers and like of course they have like yarn and you know, probably anything that you would really need and it's like at a more reasonable price.

00;36;48;10 - 00;37;06;26
Unknown
And so everything is just donated to us. And people are like, I got all this yarn because I thought I was going to start pushing me like that, or mine go, which is wonderful because I like, I like to use like do stuff with it. So yeah, just really quickly I put that in there. I love that meaning to go down there forever and I haven't made it, but I know about it.

00;37;06;26 - 00;37;27;27
Unknown
So actually, that's one the very first night that we were hosting the craft night, my partner was crocheting because he crochets and I knit, so he was crocheting and a guy walks in and he's like, oh, I used to, like, someone taught me how to do that one time, and I really liked it. And I was like, well, if you want to go sit with my partner, I'll show you what to do.

00;37;27;29 - 00;37;44;18
Unknown
And so it was just these two dudes sitting there crocheting together. And at the end of the craft night, he's like, this has been a lot of fun. How much does like yarn and and these crochet things, how much do they cost? I want to go get some. And I was like, please just go take them. You know, a day cost me like $3.

00;37;44;18 - 00;38;05;09
Unknown
Please take them home with you. But I did tell him and I've been telling everybody about that place because. And it's not that far. They're from the thousands. And it's it's actually like, really just, like, turn the corner. It's like just down the road, and it's, like, pretty accessible to you because I feel like otherwise, you know, you might not know where to get stuff, but it's all it's all in one place.

00;38;05;12 - 00;38;25;08
Unknown
And there's so much cool stuff in that area. You have great wine. Oh my gosh, from Wagon Bike Shop, which we also love for American. Absolutely. Yeah. Well this is this has been a phenomenal end to the podcast season. And we are so honored to have you on the podcast. This episode you had some you had a phenomenal story to tell us today.

00;38;25;08 - 00;38;53;09
Unknown
And so we just want to say from bottom of our heart, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah. Thank you. Everything was so moving. Thank you so much for inviting me. It's been such a pleasure talking to you all so much. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Connect with us by following our Instagram at the podcast and at UK under our Facebook UK Undergraduate Research and our Twitter at UK UTR.

00;38;53;12 - 00;39;02;15
Unknown
This episode and other episodes can be found on our Spotify. Stay tuned for more!

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;29;11
Unknown
Hello and welcome to the Oh You Are a podcast. We are proud to announce the partnership with the office of the Vice President for research. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Diksha, and I'm Erin. Joining us today is Finn Haight. Welcome to the podcast, Finn. Well, thanks for having me, guys. I'm really excited to be here. So to start off, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your research?

00;00;29;12 - 00;00;55;16
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. So my name is Finn. Hey, I'm a junior. I'm double majoring in environmental sustainability studies and geography. It's a real mouthful. And, this summer I did some research involving recycling in the UK. It was actually part of an annual kind of research program that happens where we send out these surveys to students, staff, faculty every semester to kind of gauge people's understanding and belief in recycling.

00;00;55;16 - 00;01;12;14
Unknown
You know, like there's all these questions like it'll be pictures of a plastic bag, a piece of cardboard, stuff like that, and it'll be like drag and drop it into the bin that you think this waste is supposed to go into or like, how much do you think that faculty at the University of Kentucky actually cares about recycling?

00;01;12;18 - 00;01;35;24
Unknown
It's a bunch of questions like that. And basically what we do is we take all the answers to this and we just kind of run the numbers on, you know, how do different demographics feel about this? What do people think that we can do better? And then eventually it's just the part that we're kind of working on right now or we kind of develop, okay, what can we do better for the next semester so that we can get our waste diversion rates higher?

00;01;35;26 - 00;01;54;25
Unknown
That's really cool. Is there a name for this survey? I think it's just the UK recycling survey. Okay. Yeah. There's it should be sent out by email at some point soon. I think, you can win a gift card if you, if you respond to it. I don't know if we're doing it this semester. I'm assuming we are, but I'll be on the lookout for that gift card for sure.

00;01;54;28 - 00;02;16;06
Unknown
But it's so wonderful to hear about sustainability research. I think that it's one of the kind of unspoken heroes of the research community. How did you get into that kind of area of research? You know, did you have a passion for it, or did it just kind of happen when you started college? Yeah. Well, I mean, I think going to college sustainability was definitely something I wanted to do.

00;02;16;06 - 00;02;30;18
Unknown
I knew I was going to be an NS major. That kind of went back to high school. I actually thought I was going to be going to law school after this. I really wanted to be a lawyer for a while, and I was kind of thinking, numbers game, environmental law is going to be really big in the future.

00;02;30;21 - 00;02;50;06
Unknown
You know, it's all the stuff we have going on right now. But I took a couple classes on sustainability in high school, and I really liked it, and I decided that I just wanted to, you know, specifically be involved with, you know, the law aspect. I don't really care so much about anymore. And I'm more interested in just kind of the processes and things involved with actually, you know, creating more sustainable systems.

00;02;50;09 - 00;03;08;17
Unknown
So really how I got into the research is I was I just wanted to get some and fill up my resume. And I was directed talk to, doctor Lauren Cagle, and she's, works in sustainability at the University of Kentucky and basically just reached out to her resume. And she was like, well, I'm doing this, this project.

00;03;08;17 - 00;03;30;18
Unknown
And, you know, I'd love to have you work on this. And it was, you know, the rest is history. I guess. So they say, when did you start this project? And since May of 2024, I've been working on this project here last summer, started working on it, and it went for basically all the summer. The actual process of cleaning the data, you know, analyzing it, stuff like that went until August.

00;03;30;18 - 00;03;50;07
Unknown
And now we're in kind of a we're kind of cooling off right now, but now you're going to be working on actually producing a report on all the information. So I'm really excited for that. So what are your current responsibilities on this research project? Since I'm hearing that the survey part has kind of like the data, collection part has kind of like died down.

00;03;50;07 - 00;04;14;27
Unknown
So you're just working on the report now? Yeah. So we've essentially gathered and analyzed all the data, and now we're looking at kind of, you know, taking all these pieces that we have because because the way that it worked out, it comes out in separate sort of chunks where it'll be like, okay, we ran this, analysis on, say like undergrads and how they feel about, you know, whether or not the university believes in the efficacy of recycling if they actually think it's something worth spending time on.

00;04;15;00 - 00;04;33;14
Unknown
And we have a bunch of little questions and chunks like that for all these different kinds of demographics and questions that we want to answer. And so what we're kind of doing now is piecing all that together and figuring out what the big picture looks like. And then from there, you know, what does this actually mean? What can we do to get people to recycle more?

00;04;33;14 - 00;04;58;29
Unknown
How can we better educate people about what goes where? You know, what kind of things they should be throwing away and, and what can be reused, how to reduce waste, at all in the first place, you know. And so that's kind of what we're working on right now, is figuring out where to go from here. And now that we have this information, you know, to my understanding, like recycling what you can recycle, all of that depends on, like, your state or, you know, like cities.

00;04;58;29 - 00;05;15;05
Unknown
So it's definitely very variable, even even within cities. Yeah. One of the things that I was really excited to learn about was the fact that those recycling bins that have the little posters on them with, like, what can go in there, that was a result of the, the research from, the last time it was conducted.

00;05;15;05 - 00;05;33;20
Unknown
So, I mean, that's that's I'll be honest, I even, I even forget sometimes what exactly I can put where. So it's always great to see that. I'm sure it helps a lot of other people too. One of the things that always got me, even as somebody who's in sustainability, you know, I should know the stuff. I, I'm from Illinois, so I used to go home, go to Illinois.

00;05;33;20 - 00;05;51;15
Unknown
There'd be different things, you know, there you can recycle paper, and stuff like that where it's like, okay, I'm, I'm, I'm in the habit of of recycling this and throwing this way here. And then I, you know, drive seven hours, go back to school. And now it's like, you know, yeah, it's, you know, so it's it's it's definitely kind of a confusing process.

00;05;51;17 - 00;06;17;06
Unknown
So I think that your research is saying that people really need to hear. And it's something that isn't presented on as frequent as it should be. Have you ever gotten the chance to present your research or if not, are you planning to do so? Yeah. So, I have not yet presented, the research. But once the report is concluded and we have, some more conclusive findings, some, you know, kind of clearer sort of explanations for things.

00;06;17;09 - 00;06;53;00
Unknown
That's definitely the plan. So to our viewers at home, Finn is a member of the SC. Could you kind of tell us what that is, what it means to be a member? Yeah, yeah. Of course. So the SC is the Student Sustainability Council and that's basically well what it sounds like it's a council of students. And, and basically what we do is we kind of are able to dole out these funds to, projects from students, faculty even, that are, related to sustainability, environmentalism on campus.

00;06;53;02 - 00;07;22;26
Unknown
And basically what happens is, whenever you pay your tuition, there's I think it's $3 right now, there's a $3 fee that you pay. And for each student, everybody pays that $3 that goes into a big fund that we use to fund and finance, these, these projects normally it's it's research, giving people, stipends. I actually, before I became a member, I applied, for a stipend to work this summer on this, on this research project that I'm talking about right now.

00;07;22;29 - 00;07;44;05
Unknown
And so basically what we do is we, hold these meetings, pretty much once a month, people come in with their projects, they explain to us, what it is they're doing, what they need the money for, what the budget is. And then we discuss, you know? Okay. Is this something that campus needs? Is this something that's you know, just the best use of this money?

00;07;44;09 - 00;08;03;01
Unknown
And normally, the answer is yes. We have some really great projects, going on right now. And it's it's a really cool thing to get to work on because you kind of get to see the other areas of campus. It's crazy how much sustainability, actually works with, so many other facets of life on campus.

00;08;03;04 - 00;08;24;18
Unknown
And it's, it's really an inspiring thing to, to get to be a part of. So it's it's it's super cool. Yeah. Thank you to The Media Depot for giving us a place to record the ou r podcast. Check out their Instagram at Media Depot and website. It's that UCA reeducate Media Depot to view all of their services.

00;08;24;20 - 00;08;48;00
Unknown
I did not know that the money came from like the students. That's really cool because it's funded by students and doled out by students. It's it's great because it's such a it's such a small amount. I mean, I'm, I doubt anybody's going to be missing that, that $3. But when you put it all together, I mean, we we have a pretty considerable fund right now and we've been able to finance a lot of really great projects with it.

00;08;48;00 - 00;09;09;26
Unknown
So it's it's kind of a really cool way of, you know, everybody gives a small amount. But it a lot of times that these projects that are being financed, help everyone. And it adds, you know, just I don't know, a lot of value to life here on campus. So it's really cool. So are you involved in any other organizations on campus aside from SLC?

00;09;09;28 - 00;09;27;09
Unknown
Currently, no. I used to be in, APL which self I Omega. That's a, student, kind of like, service fraternity. But I just, I want to have more time in my day to day schedule. So you have to ask yourself at the end of the day, you know, what, am I getting out of this?

00;09;27;09 - 00;09;44;11
Unknown
Because I think when you're talking about, you know, you're involved in the SLC and that's kind of your focal point, you know, quality over quantity. Yeah, absolutely. You're getting the most out of that. So that's what you're doing with your time. And I really respect that. Yeah. It seems like you're really passionate about SLC understandably. I think it's I'm happy to be a part of it.

00;09;44;16 - 00;10;11;01
Unknown
So what's something about the research you've done that you've enjoyed? One of the things that I really enjoyed about the research that I, I kind of didn't think I would like doing, was the really kind of like tedious work of going through all the data, cleaning it and organizing it and coding it. I really loved going through the data and just kind of, you know, deleting all the duplicate responses, all the stuff like it.

00;10;11;03 - 00;10;28;19
Unknown
And then at the end you have stuff that is organized and it all just makes sense. It's all it's all kind of a perfect, robot as perfect as it can get, kind of, just all these different sections and columns. So this divide under it's it's very it's you can just kind of go around and play around with this data for as long as you want.

00;10;28;19 - 00;10;48;01
Unknown
And it's just really interesting to like, oh, like, what do, what do a grad students think about, you know, how I don't know how recycling on campus is? What do they think about the new, the new bins that we have, you know, stuff like that. Just being able to run questions like that with with any of the, all the data.

00;10;48;01 - 00;11;07;27
Unknown
I think it's a lot of fun. Now, the question is between the grad students, the faculty and the undergrads, who who is, I don't know, like a sustainable who's the most sustainable, who gets the who gets the title? It's, it's been a while since I've looked at it. There's also, like, people in the front there also include.

00;11;07;29 - 00;11;28;02
Unknown
I don't know how this works, but people who aren't even, like, affiliate with you yet. Just people in the surrounding chat. Okay. That's cool. Okay. But that's there were like five responses. How do they get access to this? I don't know, I'm I wasn't really sure. I was kind of curious about that myself. I was wondering on campus, I think we put up some of those, yard signs too, with like, QR codes.

00;11;28;04 - 00;11;59;16
Unknown
So I think that might have something to do with it. But to answer your question, I it's been a while since I've looked at the data, so I'm not I don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure actually undergrads, did the best I knew. We ate. I believe in us. Maybe I'm just biased because I'm an undergrad and I want to remember that we did the best, but I'm pretty certain, that they on general were the most knowledgeable.

00;11;59;19 - 00;12;24;24
Unknown
It was kind of an interesting thing where a lot of respondents believed that, recycling was important, but it wasn't personally important if they did it or not, which was kind of weird. But it makes sense, I guess. I mean, there's a lot of stuff going around right now about how, you know, really like energy and oil companies kind of came up with the whole like, well, oh, you have to recycle and like, you do your part, you know, when they're the ones dumping, you know, oil into the oceans and stuff like that.

00;12;24;26 - 00;12;50;15
Unknown
So I think with that kind of stuff being common knowledge now, people maybe feel less personal pressure, but still recognize the importance of, you know, the responsibility of recycling. I also wonder if it's like, at least in our generation, I learned about recycling in school. Yeah, I don't know if, like, maybe the faculty members, I don't know if it was as big of an emphasis back, in, like, grades.

00;12;50;15 - 00;13;09;15
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. Well, one of the actually, it's interesting that you mention that because I'm sure you guys, you know, reduce, reuse, recycle, right. There was, one of the questions asked about, when you hear the word recycling, what are the first three words that came to mind? And you wouldn't believe the amount of people who just said reduce, reuse, recycle.

00;13;09;17 - 00;13;37;04
Unknown
Like when I hear the word recycle recycling, you know, but also just that which which tells us that a lot of those people. And this was cool, actually, what we could do. So we could see people who had responses like that and then determine, okay, you know, how much do you actually know about recycling? Because normally when when those are the first few words, not something like, oh, I don't know, like, waste reduction or terms and concepts like that, they're a little more like technical.

00;13;37;06 - 00;13;53;25
Unknown
It normally indicates that maybe someone's like kind of like a millennial or like an older Gen Z, and also that they kind of, have a more limited or like, superficial kind of understanding of, of what actually goes on with recycling, which was just, again, just an interesting thing to be able to see when you have all this data compiled.

00;13;53;25 - 00;14;23;22
Unknown
It's really cool. Yeah, that's really cool. What are your plans for the future? What do you see sustainability becoming for you? That's a good question. And honestly, I'm not too sure that I have a concrete answer, myself, but, I would really like to start focusing in with the other half of my major, which is, geography and kind of the GIS software, which, to those of you at home who aren't a geographer, it's software that allows you to map data.

00;14;23;23 - 00;14;49;05
Unknown
It's a really powerful data analysis tool, and it's something that a lot of, environmental organizations and just, you know, really, really good companies, organizations, groups in general, it's it's it's just something that's, you know, very in-demand right now. And I would like to try and hone my skills with that a little bit more this summer. I would really like to get some kind of, sustainability internship that kind of combines those two things.

00;14;49;08 - 00;15;10;00
Unknown
As far as the future goes for me, I'm not sure I really love the city of, Washington, DC, and I would love, to work with NASA, or any other kind of, kind of governmental organization that does work with sustainability and needs, kind of like, you know, nerdy data science type stuff. I think that would be great.

00;15;10;03 - 00;15;28;20
Unknown
That sounds really cool. So those are all the questions we have for you today. Thank you so much, for spending time with us today. And we really enjoy the conversation. Yeah. Thank you guys so much for having me on. It's been a lot of fun. I love sitting here with this this whole setup with the headphones, the microphone, everything.

00;15;28;20 - 00;15;59;18
Unknown
I. Yeah, I need a podcast. This is great. You should absolutely get one. We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much guys. It was great getting to talk to you. Yeah. Thank you for listening. Connect with us by following our Instagram at the podcast and at UK are our Facebook UK undergraduate research and our Twitter at UK for this episode and other episodes can be found on our Spotify.

00;15;59;21 - 00;16;04;23
Unknown
Stay tuned for more.

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;29;17
Unknown
Hello and welcome to the Oh You Are a podcast. We are proud to announce the partnership with the office of the Vice President for research. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Syria and I'm Connor. Today's guest is Doctor Chad Briscoe, professor of chemistry and faculty director of the Office of Undergraduate Research. Welcome, Doctor Roscoe. Thank you for being here today.

00;00;29;20 - 00;00;47;08
Unknown
And thanks for inviting me to come. How are you guys doing today? We're doing great. How are you doing? Great. Thanks. All right. Well, we're so glad to have you here today. So, Doctor Roscoe, please tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get to UK? What made you choose being in the Department of Chemistry? So I actually grew up in a small town in Kansas.

00;00;47;10 - 00;01;05;29
Unknown
When my family moved there in the early 80s, I think there were probably like 2 or 3000 people. And so I grew up in a very rural environment. And you know what that meant for going, you know, through school and through high school. We didn't have a whole lot of opportunity beyond sort of, you know, the base classes that you could take.

00;01;05;29 - 00;01;23;26
Unknown
Although we did have AP chemistry, AP physics and things like that. To be honest, though, when I was in high school and when I first went to undergrad, I did not like chemistry at all. The degree program that I was in meant that I had to take chemistry, and my first year that I was there, it was four days a week, 8 a.m. in the morning.

00;01;23;26 - 00;01;43;07
Unknown
I was good at it. Right? And but I didn't like it still. Fortunately, though, I had an advisor and my instructor for Gen Chem and also for the lab, who by the time that my freshman year was done, was like, you're going to be a chemist. Not really. I was really hesitant to want to do it because it wasn't a topic that really excited me.

00;01;43;11 - 00;01;59;13
Unknown
You know, my advisor kept pushing, but you really need to study chemistry, you know, because of them. I added chemistry as a major, ended up learning about what graduate school was. I had really had no idea that you could go and get a PhD. I didn't go directly to graduate school, which is what a lot of people do.

00;01;59;14 - 00;02;26;18
Unknown
They decide to take that path. I worked in an industry for two years as a chemist and then went on to graduate school, started at the University of Arizona. So that was, I guess, my second instance of being a Wildcat. My undergrad was also a Wildcat. Things happen, and my PhD advisor moved from Arizona to Georgia Tech. So my PhD actually came from Georgia Tech and Atlanta bounced around, did a postdoc and some other work at northwestern, went back to Georgia Tech.

00;02;26;18 - 00;02;44;12
Unknown
And I've been at the University of Kentucky in Chemistry since 2014, when I came here as an assistant professor. So it's been ten years now, and it's been a really good ten years. That sounds awesome. It's a great story. Very interesting. Could you actually elaborate a bit more about the transition from Arizona to Georgia Tech as a graduate student?

00;02;44;20 - 00;03;01;23
Unknown
That's a really kind of a cool question. It wasn't an easy decision. I was at a point, if you don't know sort of how graduate programs work. You go through your first couple of years, usually you're taking classes, and then you reach that point where you take your oral exam. And at that point is when you become a PhD candidate.

00;03;01;26 - 00;03;25;15
Unknown
And it was right after I finished passing my oral exam that it was decided that the group that I belong to and some other researchers were going to make that move from Arizona to Georgia Tech. So I had a decision to make. And for me, it was actually the research was more important than the institution. And I wanted to keep the same focus that I had in terms of doing my PhD research.

00;03;25;15 - 00;03;45;10
Unknown
And so for that reason, it was, you know, a fairly easy decision, though it didn't mean that my wife and I had to move yet again, about 2500 miles across country to move from Tucson to Atlanta. Could you describe a little more about your research that you did while you were a PhD student, and research that you're currently doing in your lab at UK?

00;03;45;12 - 00;04;02;20
Unknown
So the research that I did as a PhD student, a lot of it we actually still do today in my lab. So in our lab we are computational chemists. So being in the Department of Chemistry, a lot of times people will say like, oh, you're a chemist, right? You're going to be up to bench making things and measuring things.

00;04;02;20 - 00;04;28;23
Unknown
And that's absolutely not what we do. All of our research is done on a computer, and we have a focus on trying to study materials that may be of interest for energy conversion and storage. So think about materials for solar cells or new materials for batteries. We also have interest in materials that are of interest for new types of electronics and also bio and environmental sensors.

00;04;28;23 - 00;04;48;23
Unknown
But again we look at this from the perspective of can we model it right. Can we use physics. Can we use quantum mechanics. Can we use classical mechanics to really dig in and provide insights at across a lot of different scales that somebody might be able to say, like, oh, cool, you learned this thing, and I can use that to design something new.

00;04;48;26 - 00;05;16;01
Unknown
Over the last few years, we've also started to dig into artificial intelligence and machine learning. And so we do have a small portion of our lab that we're really fortunate to collaborate with. Some folks at the center for Applied Energy Research, where we have a robot and where we're teaching this robot to do electrochemistry, which is a type of experiment that people are interested in using to characterize their their materials.

00;05;16;03 - 00;05;39;20
Unknown
That's super cool. Did you guys design the robot and make it yourself? So we we bought the robot, but we've had to train it to do everything else. And we've also had to build a lot of different types of apparatus. Right, to help do the experiments. And so this is a really cool project because we're chemists, we're computational chemists, but we're working with people who do experimental chemistry.

00;05;39;23 - 00;06;09;08
Unknown
We have somebody on the team that's a mechanical engineer. Right. And so they're actually the ones that go in and design all of these different tools that we then, you know, use for this robotic experiment. That's really cool. It sounds like a pretty big undertaking though. So I imagine you have students in your lab. Could you maybe talk about how many students are in the risco lab and maybe elaborate a bit about their experience with this project in working with you?

00;06;09;10 - 00;06;37;08
Unknown
Yeah, so we have a fairly good sized lab. I would say we're fortunate that we have a research scientist that works with us part time. And currently we have two postdoctoral scholars, ten graduate students and two undergrads. In the past, we've also had high school students that have worked with us. It's a pretty big group. I think the people that are in our lab really come from a lot of different backgrounds, both where they come from.

00;06;37;15 - 00;07;06;28
Unknown
So probably 50% of our lab now is is international, but also their experience, right, with sort of what they studied as undergrads and for our postdocs, what they studied during their PhD. So we have people, again with backgrounds in mechanical engineering, in chemical engineering and chemistry and physics, computer science. Right. And we really need all of that to come together to, to tackle, you know, the types of problems that we look at.

00;07;07;00 - 00;07;31;17
Unknown
So my hope for our, you know, our students that work in the lab is that they get a really broad experience. They have the things that they really work on and sort of dig deep into. But then there are opportunities to go and, you know, play around and learn some other things so that when they leave the lab, you know, they're they're in a good position to go out and, and do what it is that, that they want to do in the future.

00;07;31;19 - 00;07;53;11
Unknown
Definitely. Yeah. So it sounds like you have a lot of experience with mentoring students. Do you have any advice for students who would like to get started with research? Yeah, I think the first thing is to know that you can do it right. So one of the and I and I pull this, I guess, from my, my personal experience a little bit.

00;07;53;11 - 00;08;20;10
Unknown
Right. So again, coming from sort of a rural community where we had some opportunity, but maybe not as many opportunities as you would if you grew up in a more suburban urban environment. I didn't really know what research meant when I went to undergrad, and I suspect that we have, you know, a lot of students that come to UK that don't know what research means and that, you know, being a researcher doesn't mean that you're also doing Stem, right, that you're not in the sciences or math or engineering.

00;08;20;15 - 00;08;56;12
Unknown
You can do research across campus in in any discipline. So it's really, I think one, knowing that this is a possibility and then to finding what you're passionate about, what you'd like to to learn more about it can be in your area of study, but it doesn't have to be one of the real benefits of being in this position as faculty director of the Office of Undergraduate Research, is that I get to interact with students that, you know, they may be biology majors or neuroscience majors, but they're doing research in the humanities, and that's because that's where their passion takes them.

00;08;56;14 - 00;09;24;00
Unknown
And so, you know, those are the first couple of things. It's one know that it's an opportunity. And then two, what is it that you really think that you want to do? And then you can go and you can start that search. That's some great advice. Fascinating. Thank you. Interesting to hear your perspective on how, future students or current undergraduates can get involved with with an endeavor that feels so big and overwhelming at first.

00;09;24;02 - 00;09;46;21
Unknown
Yeah. And I definitely agree with you. When you said that people need to take the time to realize that they can do research in any discipline at UK and that also they can do research outside of their major. So that's a great point that you brought up. No thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. Do you think growing up in a rural community has any effect on how you run your lab today?

00;09;46;23 - 00;10;10;09
Unknown
It does. And and maybe it's I'll run it just a little bit more than just growing up in a rural community. Part of it, too, was so one just thinking about what opportunities you have to learn about research and, you know, big things. And for me, big things in chemistry and science. But also when I went to graduate school, I had an intended purpose of what I wanted to do when I went to study.

00;10;10;09 - 00;10;31;23
Unknown
And this was in the area of sort of analytic or physical chemistry, I wanted to go and measure things and build new tools to measure things. I had no idea that computational chemistry existed. And so I kind of took a leap of faith when I decided to join this group that was doing chemistry on a computer, because I had never done it before.

00;10;31;25 - 00;11;00;12
Unknown
And so I think, you know, when how that sort of transcends to mentorship in our lab is we don't have any expectation that anybody knows what they're going to do when they step foot in the lab, because I had no idea. Right. So I can't have that expectation for high school students, undergrads, graduate students, whatever. Right. So we we really focus on on mentoring and bringing folks up to speed as they begin projects right away.

00;11;00;20 - 00;11;21;14
Unknown
And that's true for everybody that that joins the lab. I say this to our undergrads and to our graduate students that are interested in coming to the group. It's helpful, right? If you have some background, but it's not necessary. The other thing that it's done too, is that, you know, we've we've tried to build, I hope, successfully, a culture of mentorship in the lab.

00;11;21;14 - 00;11;44;20
Unknown
Meaning that again, if if there's no if I have no expectation. Right. And our idea is that we're going to build you up to that point, then the students that have more experience, they're going to like, reciprocate that right to the next generation of students. And so and so we see that a lot where senior undergraduates, senior graduate students, they are the ones that are actually doing the mentorship for the new students as they come through.

00;11;44;20 - 00;12;05;17
Unknown
And and that's just a really, you know, I think, important part of research training in general, because we we do have an obligation to do new science and to create scientists, but we also have an obligation to create leaders. And then people who are going to lead their fields. And and leadership comes in a lot of different ways.

00;12;05;19 - 00;12;30;07
Unknown
Thank you to The Media Depot for giving us a place to record the podcast. Check out their Instagram at Media Depot and website. It's that you keep Edu Media Depot to view all of their services. How has research impacted your life? In part, I define a bit of who I am as being a researcher. It's not the only part.

00;12;30;09 - 00;12;54;19
Unknown
Yeah, I'm a I'm a dad and a husband and a teacher. You know, I do a lot of different things. But you know, definitely being a researcher is part of who I identify to be. It's brought me opportunities that I could have never imagined. So one again, just going. I didn't know what a PhD was or maybe I, you know, didn't really think about it as an undergrad.

00;12;54;19 - 00;13;14;15
Unknown
And going in into my bachelor's degree. And when I went to my PhD. All of a sudden, I'm meeting all of these people from all over the world, right. And I got the opportunity to travel. I had the opportunity to go and live in Belgium for almost three months, to do research, and then travel in Europe for a couple of weeks thereafter.

00;13;14;17 - 00;13;36;21
Unknown
I get to go now to international conferences or conferences that are here in the US and, you know, meet people from across the world and learn about not only what science they do, but who they are as people. And for me, that's been, like super enlightening. That's so interesting that you get to travel and do research at different places and present your research.

00;13;36;23 - 00;13;55;28
Unknown
What kind of research were you doing in Belgium? Was that while you were doing your PhD or while at UK? No. So that was while I was doing my PhD. And so it was again, it was sort of computational chemistry that we were doing. And, you know, I was just able to go to a sister lab essentially, that we had, and spend some time with them.

00;13;55;28 - 00;14;16;04
Unknown
And yeah, I'm actually hopeful to go see them again in the spring for a little bit. Oh, well, I'm hoping for you. That sounds fun. And then what kind of conferences have you and your students attended to present the research that you're doing at UK? Probably like our big conferences that we go to are things that are put on by organizations like the American Chemical Society.

00;14;16;04 - 00;14;45;24
Unknown
So that's one of the biggest societies for chemists in the US. And then likewise, the Materials Research Society. But then there are a lot of other smaller conferences that we go to that are much more specialized, that are put on by smaller groups. As a professional researcher, what is your most proud accomplishment? I think it's I mean, this is going to sound cliche, but but for me, it's it's really the students that get to come out and go and do the next steps.

00;14;45;27 - 00;15;05;20
Unknown
You know, it's it's really cool to, to have students in your lab. You know, sometimes it's just for a year, like if we have an undergrad and they're, they're there for like their senior year or something like that. But you know, we for our undergrads, we've had several that are there for two, 3 or 4 years. Our PhD students tend on that 4 to 5 year time frame.

00;15;05;20 - 00;15;27;22
Unknown
And so you really get to know the people and you get to see them progress, you know, as as scientists and as people and sort of go through all the trials and tribulations of doing research because it's easy. The things that you have to do is get, really good with failure. But then, you know, when they get that diploma, right?

00;15;27;22 - 00;15;50;21
Unknown
And then when they have that next step, that's super gratifying. It's so amazing to see how much you care about your students in your lab. Hopefully. Do you maintain contact with any of your former mentees as they go on to become leaders in their field? Yeah, so that's a lot of fun. So we get to see the students sometimes at conferences.

00;15;50;24 - 00;16;11;12
Unknown
We had a student that got married this summer, and so some of us were in Atlanta for their wedding. And that was just a lot of fun, right? Yeah. And, you know, and email and other electronic communication. Right. It's it's pretty easy to do that. What's something about research that you enjoy that you never thought you would? Going back to the previous answer, it's it's the people.

00;16;11;14 - 00;16;35;06
Unknown
It's it's working with a team to try to to answer, you know, sometimes fairly complex questions and that's true just of who we have in our lab. But then we also collaborate a lot with with people across the country and across the world to, to try to address questions. And so you just learn a lot, right? In terms of like the science that we do.

00;16;35;08 - 00;16;57;13
Unknown
But then also just in terms of, you know, how do people manage their groups, how do you manage different personalities? And then, you know, like I said, you get to yeah, sometimes there are those times right where you can just sit down and relax and have a conversation, folks. And so I think you know, a lot of people will will picture, right, the scientist and they're just standing there again at their bench doing their thing.

00;16;57;13 - 00;17;23;13
Unknown
And then they go home and they do more science. And yeah, I go home and I do more science. But you know, those kinds of interactions are really important. And I and I think it's probably been one of the most surprising things for me. So I have a quick question. Yeah. Did you experience any significant differences in working in the lab in Belgium versus the United States?

00;17;23;15 - 00;17;53;01
Unknown
So yes, some of it I'd given I'd already been given a bit of a preview of because the, the lab that I was in and also one of the main labs that we collaborated with, there were a lot of Europeans and, and that we interacted with a lot. And so probably something that we don't do a good job of, like here in the US is, is take time to sit, sit down and think, like, yeah, because we're doing things a lot.

00;17;53;01 - 00;18;09;00
Unknown
Right? When we're in the lab in Belgium, you know, you come in, you work for an hour or two and then it's coffee break and then you sit down. Everybody goes and sits and has had some coffee. Go and you do some more stuff for a while, and then it's lunch and then you actually take lunch, right? I mean, I don't do this now.

00;18;09;00 - 00;18;27;17
Unknown
I still sit at my desk and eat my lunch and work, work away and then you after lunch, you go and do some more research and then it's time for tea. And so, you know, I think sort of the, the pace of the day is a is a little different. Those are just cultural things I think with, with the way that that things are done.

00;18;27;17 - 00;18;52;00
Unknown
But you know, the, the level and I don't know if there's a better way or not. Right. Because the level of science and output is, is, is equal, right? I mean, it's it's astounding. I think what people do and what what you can be, what you can do when you're driven to, to follow something. Yes. It's amazing what you can get done with proper work life balance.

00;18;52;02 - 00;19;08;15
Unknown
Yeah. That's that's a big thing. I'm a researcher, I'm a teacher, but I'm a I'm a dad and a husband. And so, you know, we. Yeah, I was coaching my son's baseball team for a long time while he was doing that. And, you know, we still attend events for our kids who are both now in high school. So.

00;19;08;15 - 00;19;28;11
Unknown
Yeah, so finding that balance is really critical. And it I really critical for you guys as students and students who are busy in the classroom trying to do research, trying to do all of these other activities. It's a lot of fun, but sometimes you just need that minute to go run three miles or, you know, do something. Definitely.

00;19;28;11 - 00;19;56;17
Unknown
That's some good advice. Was there anything else that you'd like to share with us before we wrap up today? Well, I you know, I want to I think, and just, you know, being faculty director for the Office of Undergraduate Research has been a really fantastic experience over the last few years. We have these opportunities to to learn about everything that goes on on campus and see a lot of diversity in terms of the research that's done, in terms of the people that are doing that research.

00;19;56;20 - 00;20;18;06
Unknown
But again, you know, there's also this being in the office has been great because, you know, we've we've had a really cool opportunity to build a really fantastic team of people. So, you know, we have Jesse Haven that really are the office, I would say, because they're they're the ones that are out there doing all of the really fantastic work.

00;20;18;06 - 00;20;43;11
Unknown
And then we have had four cohorts, I guess, of ambassadors, and you guys do amazing things and come up with these podcasts and, and other things. And so, you know, this is something that I really appreciate that you guys do. And then we've also, you know, been super fortunate to have really fantastic staff of students over the years that we've been sort of building the office.

00;20;43;13 - 00;21;06;21
Unknown
So that's a lot of fun for me, right. Just to kind of, you know, see people do things again that they're passionate about and want to push and, and seeing if we can help provide those opportunities. We have a fantastic office. Everyone does such an amazing job and we love having you in office as well. Well, Doctor Risco, it's been a pleasure having you today on your podcast.

00;21;06;23 - 00;21;33;01
Unknown
It was great to hear more about your work and your story. So thank you for coming. All right. Thanks for having me, guys. Thank you for listening. Connect with us by following our Instagram at the you, our podcast and at UK Ugur, our Facebook UK undergraduate research and our Twitter at UK younger. This episode and other episodes can be found on our Spotify.

00;21;33;04 - 00;21;38;07
Unknown
Stay tuned for more

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;25;01
Unknown
Hello and welcome to the Oh You Are a podcast. We are proud to announce the partnership with the office of the Vice President for research. Welcome to the show your podcast. I'm Hannah and I'm Aaron. Today on the Oh You Are podcast. We have Beau Harding. Beau. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me.

00;00;25;03 - 00;00;45;24
Unknown
The pleasure is all ours to begin. Could you just tell us a little bit about yourself and the kind of research that you do? Yeah. I'm an English and French major, junior. I'm on the Gaines fellow, the Gaines Center for the Humanities, and I'm also a resident advisor at Boyd. My research happens to focus on black literature, black poetry, specific.

00;00;45;24 - 00;01;12;09
Unknown
Early on, the black celebration movement in Africa called Latin negritude. So it's basically blackness, kind of focusing on what it means to be black, the celebration of being black and just kind of the experience as a whole. So you have poets, kind of sharing their work together. It's kind of like the Black arts movement that we had here over in America.

00;01;12;11 - 00;01;33;28
Unknown
Okay. So you do a lot of research that's kind of centered in French movements. Okay. So are you bilingual or are you learning? I'm learning French. And I hope to be I hope to be bilingual within the next few years. Yeah. Well, the best of luck to you. Thank you. It's a hard process. It is. It really is.

00;01;34;00 - 00;02;01;09
Unknown
So what led you to your decision to conduct research as an undergraduate? I'm actually I I'm very curious. I kind of see, I kind of want answers. And, I also just like reading that's my whole both majors is just reading. So I kind of wanted to kind of explore this question of experience and how it is connected both by black people here in America and black people over in Africa and the Caribbeans.

00;02;01;11 - 00;02;25;09
Unknown
So, yeah. Okay. And it's really interesting to hear about research in this topic, because a lot of times you think about research, you think about the more predominantly Stem areas and obviously UK, we are an R1 institution. So we do have lots of diversity in research. But how is that journey kind of finding your own niche in this university and kind of finding this topic that you want to explore?

00;02;25;11 - 00;02;46;15
Unknown
I think it has to do a lot with the professors. I think the classes that I take, the professors I love, I love, love, love my professors. They help spur this kind of curiosity in you and wanting to keep learning. And I think that's the mark of a great teacher, is that they want you to continue learning and just have this ambition for whatever topic that you're on.

00;02;46;17 - 00;03;12;22
Unknown
So I think there's that. So yeah, and since this isn't like a stem like wet lab experience, what exactly does your research of responsibilities look like in your current lab? A lot of really like I mean like ten hours a week, rereading, annotating, doing a lot of citations, bibliography, work. Also conversing with myself and French. I know that sounds really weird.

00;03;12;22 - 00;03;45;29
Unknown
I sound that sounds really weird, but a lot of it just has to do with a lot of self-reflection, especially when you're dealing with poetry and when you're dealing with black experience. It's not just and taking other people's experience and then culture, but it also a reflection of your own. And yeah, looking at literary experience, writing about it and then reflecting, okay, so it's kind of got like, like a natural flow to it just depending on what, you know, your headspace is at the moment.

00;03;46;01 - 00;04;06;02
Unknown
So how does do you have a mentor that kind of oversees this. Or is it just kind of like somebody who says, you know you can go and do what you need to do on this week. Yeah. So I started out this this past spring semester looking at education in Morocco, which is part of North Africa, and kind of looking at black education.

00;04;06;02 - 00;04;28;21
Unknown
There was education in general in Morocco with Doctor Nasreen over in the French department, and that kind of made its way into just looking at black experience in the movement as a whole in North Africa, like the Caribbeans, and comparing it to the black arts movement here in America with Doctor George Sauer in the French department as well.

00;04;28;26 - 00;04;55;18
Unknown
So it kind of has its ebbs and flows. I don't necessarily stick with one movement. I I'm kind of looking at black education and black literacy as a whole in both America and in Francophone countries. And this right now I'm researching how what does it mean to be literate and how does being literate in marginalized communities? How is that impactful?

00;04;55;18 - 00;05;19;21
Unknown
Why is that significant? What is the significance of being educated? Why is education a tool for basically marginalized communities? So it's a pretty fluid project from what I yeah, yeah. So I'm also trying to be a public policy minor, trying to go into law school, and I'm trying to get a joint degree in law and public policy after undergrad career.

00;05;19;23 - 00;05;46;16
Unknown
And I want to make education accessible to black communities. So all of these research projects, that I've done and are currently doing help aid in kind of the foundation, the context around why education is so important, why it's a tool used against marginalized communities from systemic oppression, and how policymakers can make it more accessible for black people worldwide.

00;05;46;19 - 00;06;14;17
Unknown
That's incredibly important to do research on. That's kind of an underrepresented area, I feel. Have you had the opportunity to go to any conferences or present this research? I have gone to a couple conferences, so I went to the Sigma Tau Delta, which is an English honor society and conference convention back in April presented Black Experience Poetry, their original work that I wrote, and I won second place for Queer Work.

00;06;14;17 - 00;06;42;06
Unknown
Congrats. Thank you. And then recently at Cannes, I've presented here at Kentucky the Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium. And that was this past two, three weeks ago. And then, oh, and then spring I did the research showcase, undergraduate research showcase. So, yeah. And this next spring, I get to go to anchor the National conference for undergraduate research.

00;06;42;06 - 00;07;06;27
Unknown
I get to go to anchor and present there. So you mentioned that you've presented at these different conferences. I was just wondering, like how those atmospheres vary conference to conference. Like, are you constantly like presenting poetry, doing a verbal presentation, or is it like casual conversation? I guess it depends. So the conference that I went to back in April of the Sigma Delta conference, that was more of a panel.

00;07;06;28 - 00;07;39;16
Unknown
So we presented the I presented my creative works, and then I had people ask me questions afterwards so that like I presented in like 15 minutes. And that was it for basically the convention. Whereas a lot of the UK conferences here, especially the undergraduate research showcase in the spring, kind of standing there with a poster, and that was more traditional research where I had data, a little bit of data and kind of explanation of what I was doing and, and that convention kind of just standing there.

00;07;39;16 - 00;07;57;28
Unknown
And you're constantly talking to people who come over here and look at your poster, ask they have any questions or explain more in depth about why you did this specific research or what you're going to do with it. And I like that. I like constantly talking with people about what I enjoy best and what kind of is my passion.

00;07;58;01 - 00;08;22;29
Unknown
So that was pretty fun. The Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium, that was a few weeks ago. We all kind of sat at a table around a table. There were like groups of like six, researchers and like one faculty mentor that would help guide the discussion. And we all kind of run around. It was very casual. We just basically had a conversation about what we did that summer and what was the fun, the summer funded research that we each did, and that was really fun.

00;08;22;29 - 00;08;44;04
Unknown
So I like each of the conventions slash conferences that I went to because they were all unique in their own way. Yeah, I love them. So there's always a different way to present your research. There's no, like, exact way. Oh yeah. Oh that's nice. What is something that, you know, going through this research, doing all these presentations, having this wide variety of experiences.

00;08;44;05 - 00;09;05;20
Unknown
What is something that you got out of it that you never thought you would or that you learned? If that's a better way to ask the question? Lowkey, it terrified me going into it. I because I am not the best of my words. Sometimes it's hard to articulate ideas. And you stumble over them and all that jazz.

00;09;05;22 - 00;09;31;18
Unknown
But I think once I got into the groove of just explaining my passion, explaining what I learned, and basically teaching someone else the same idea, it made it so much more fun. And I kind of looked at it instead of just like standing in front of the class just presenting, which is terrifying. More so just talking with a fellow person who wants to understand the world a little better.

00;09;31;21 - 00;10;01;22
Unknown
So yeah, sounds like communication is a big part of it. Oh yeah. Thank you to The Media Depot for giving us a place to record the ou r podcast. Check out their Instagram at Media Depot and website. It's Dukie reeducate Media Depot to view all of their services. And based on your experience so far, what is a piece of advice you would give to any undergraduate student who wants to pursue research?

00;10;01;24 - 00;10;25;01
Unknown
Just be open to fully understanding and trying to comprehend what it is that you're researching. You won't get it the first try. You may not even get the second try. I'm still doing this research over and over again because there's always more to learn. Yeah, just being having an open mind and being open to the fact that your brain will expand and it will be scary.

00;10;25;04 - 00;10;46;25
Unknown
But yeah, your frontal lobe is just going to keep developing. Yeah. So it's kind of just like that don't be afraid to fail mentality in that you might not get something the first time, but you might get it later on in terms of kind of actionable objectives. We have heard that you published a poetry chapbook. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

00;10;46;28 - 00;11;22;04
Unknown
Yes. So that was my summer research project that the Summer Undergraduate Research Award funded. And I did it with my, mentor, Doctor George Sauer, from the French department and essentially what I did was there are 20 poems in the chapbook. Half are in English, half are in French, and neither can be translated into the other. They are inherently their own individual poems with the same mentality and the reflected other language poems that make sense, and the poems that were written on black experience, black identity.

00;11;22;07 - 00;11;48;07
Unknown
And they are kind of influenced by the black writers, the black poets of the Black Arts movement. And. So each respective movement from the literary and language culture is in it was influenced in those language poems. So, for instance, there were a lot of poets like Nikki, Nikki Giovanni, Gwendolyn Brooks from the Black Arts Movement that I looked at who were poets.

00;11;48;09 - 00;12;14;29
Unknown
And then from when I created, I looked at, this is er, Leopold Samuel and I took their neo niche kind of affectations and their poetry, and I've kind of applied them as my own and my own experience with poetry. And then I published a chapbook, self. And apparently it was very stressful because I didn't realize I was going to be doing that until I had this idea.

00;12;14;29 - 00;12;40;01
Unknown
And I was like, I want to do it. And I changed from my original plan. But in publishing this, I made all the proceeds. I don't get any of the proceeds from this. I get no money from this publication. All the money goes towards funding black education and also goes to foundations like the Morocco Foundation, which advocate for higher literacy and black communities over Africa.

00;12;40;03 - 00;12;59;01
Unknown
So yeah, all the funds go to those organizations. So it sounds like you were really passionate about getting it out there and making that difference to where you kind of took it into your own hands to get it out there. I guess you can say that. Yeah. And that publications don't always have to be like what people think of big scientific publications.

00;12;59;01 - 00;13;21;26
Unknown
You can get your research out there in different ways. Oh yeah, that's incredibly interesting. That's. And so the poems, they cannot be translated from one language to the other. It's they're set in that language. Right. It's the inherent meaning of them is in that original language you translate that, you lose some of that meaning. So it's kind of like you could physically translate it, but then you wouldn't really understand what it's about.

00;13;21;26 - 00;13;42;00
Unknown
Right? Because there are like there are certain like references, right. There are certain references that language, if I was to reference friends in English, like friends, a TV show, but then you translate that into French and be like, what is friends? We don't have a French TV show, you know? So it's that kind of thing is not always words for everything, right.

00;13;42;02 - 00;14;11;28
Unknown
So what organizations are you involved in on campus? Oh, okay. I'm a part of Rez Life as a resident advisor. I'm a part of the Game Center for the Humanities. As against fellow, I'm a part of the Chagrin Center. As a previous Chagrin Fellow, I'm a part of the Louis Honors College as an honors member. I'm also part of the Sigma Delta chapter here at UK for the English Honors Society, and I'm a part of graphite, the Creative Writing Club.

00;14;12;00 - 00;14;32;12
Unknown
Sounds like you're highly involved. Oh, wow. Yeah, we were going to ask, what do you like to do in your free time? But the free time in question might be no, no. I like to read. I like to read, write, I bake, I knit, I love knitting, I love knitting, I knit so much, I a lot of my clothes are knitted cool, I know I wait, I can't wait till it gets colder.

00;14;32;12 - 00;14;51;11
Unknown
And then I'm literally going to bring out all of my sweaters and cardigans like knitted. When did you learn to knit? I kind of taught myself like two years ago. I was really bored during winter break after just watching horror movies. Also like, I love watching horror movies. So I was just like, I'm going to teach myself how to do this, and I did.

00;14;51;13 - 00;15;09;24
Unknown
And here we are as most hobbies come, right? Yeah. It's not a traditional knitting, it's finger knitting. So it's like weaving in between your fingers and it's better. So that way I don't get arthritis. That is so true. And know that it is such a flexible. As I knit in my own sweater because I with my bare hands.

00;15;09;28 - 00;15;26;00
Unknown
Because I tried so well, because I learned crochet. Actually, two years ago I did winter break. So I guess we were having like the same, like a power thought that coincided. But I tried to like start crocheting clothing because I like, I crochet like little tchotchkes, but I've never crocheted like clothing. It was so tedious I had to give up.

00;15;26;00 - 00;15;47;23
Unknown
I was like, this is not the way that I was like, I need to preserve my mental health for another day. Like, I can't do this. So kudos to you. Thanks. So thank you for taking the time to join us today and discuss your experience with research. It was great to know more about you as well as what you do, and we wish you the best of luck on your future endeavors.

00;15;47;23 - 00;16;18;10
Unknown
Oh thank you so much! It was wonderful meeting you guys. You as well. Thank you for listening. Connect with us by following our Instagram at the podcast and at UK. You are our Facebook UK undergraduate research and our Twitter at UK UG R. This episode and other episodes can be found on our Spotify. Stay tuned for more!

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;26;04
Unknown
Hello and welcome to the Oh You Are a podcast. We are proud to announce the partnership with the office of the Vice President for research. Welcome to the Earth podcast. I'm Hannah. I'm sorry. Today on the on your podcast we have Abdullah Share. Thank you so much for joining us today, Abdullah. Thank you so much for having me.

00;00;26;07 - 00;00;49;21
Unknown
Thank you for that introduction. I am a senior here at UK and I'm a neuroscience and computer science double major, and I'm really excited to talk to you guys today. Great. Thank you. Could you give us a brief overview of your research experiences? So I started doing research when I was in high school. I attended the Gatton Academy.

00;00;49;21 - 00;01;16;12
Unknown
So basically I was at Western Kentucky University for a couple of years, and there I got to work with Doctor Farley. Nauman and I did psychophysics research. It was like visual psychology, basically, and that was really cool. So I worked with him and that was like my introduction. And then when I got to UK, I joined Doctor Claire Rich off slab, who works in entomology, and I did Honeybee Behavioral Neuroscience there for three years.

00;01;16;20 - 00;01;40;27
Unknown
I actually just left that lab at the beginning of this semester. In between, I also worked with Doctor Sundaram in biomedical engineering for a summer, and I did a remote internship with. I'm not going to able to pronounce this correctly, I think, but I think it's the University of Radboud or Radboud in the Netherlands, and I worked in Doctor Lisa Gonzalez lab for the same summer.

00;01;40;27 - 00;02;03;20
Unknown
I was working with Doctor Sundaram, and then this last summer I did some research in Germany at the University of Pittsburgh under Doctor Claudia Summer. And now my last year at UK, I'm with Doctor Anthony, is an CEO who is new here this year and he's doing EEG, neuro like computational neuroscience research. Can you elaborate a little on your current project?

00;02;03;22 - 00;02;37;12
Unknown
Yeah, so I just joined doctor Z. S goes lab and he focuses on something called EEG micro States. This is very similar to what I was doing over the summer. And that's actually how I found him. And basically an EEG is a continuous time series of data points from around the scalp where you take electrodes and they measure the voltage across the skull and the scalp with the cortex, and if you plot the voltages at every time point, then you get like a map of the brain with like red and blue colors, which looks really cool.

00;02;37;12 - 00;02;56;28
Unknown
And you can perform a clustering algorithm on the whole time series, which basically means that you take, let's say you pick a number like 4 or 5 or something, and then you take all of the data and you say, okay, well, let's try to group each one of these points into one of these 4 or 5 groups based on how similar they are to each other.

00;02;57;00 - 00;03;35;25
Unknown
And it was found in about the 1970s, though it's only really been extensively researched in the last few years, that when you do that, you come out with in pretty much every healthy person, at least for, we think seven now microstates, which are topologies or maps of the brain that just they're very similar throughout pretty much every person, with the exception of people that have some sort of disorder or disease which might affect the brain, such as schizophrenia or autism, ADHD, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, epilepsy.

00;03;36;00 - 00;03;58;13
Unknown
A lot of different things have been shown to alter these micro states. And doctors and CEO is doing that sort of research with mindfulness and meditation. And so that's what I'll be working on this year. That's really cool. That is really cool. Since you got involved in research in high school, how is that experience shaped your interests as an undergraduate student?

00;03;58;15 - 00;04;24;24
Unknown
Well, I kind of did research in high school because everybody at that school was doing research, and it was kind of the thing to do, but I didn't really know what it was. And then I started doing it. And Doctor Norman is this he is a very incredible scientist. His whole philosophy is that every time I want to start a new project, I find something that like some fringe idea that nobody's really looked at yet within the field.

00;04;24;24 - 00;04;49;14
Unknown
And then he just does a project answer the question. He's got, like while I was there, I think he celebrated his 100th publication. That number might be wrong, but it was like some like big, big number, like that, at least 100. And I realized that, okay, well, research is just learning new things about the world. And it's like every discovery that you read about in middle school, somebody had to do a lot of research for it.

00;04;49;14 - 00;05;17;20
Unknown
And I think that that's really cool to do. And I think that kind of opened my eyes to the fact that I could do that. And so I think I'm going to pursue research as well in my career. So how have you incorporated your own creative interest into your research? So I am a neuroscience and CSS double major, and I justify doing that by saying that I wanted to do, brain computer interface research, which is true.

00;05;17;20 - 00;05;35;16
Unknown
I do want to do that. And I've come to I've come to love the concept of doing that and the research that I do, but I think realistically it was because my parents wanted me to be a doctor. But I really want to do CSS. So I was like, I'm just going to do both of them. And because obviously that's not a bad idea, but it's been kind of rough.

00;05;35;19 - 00;05;57;19
Unknown
But I found that doing computational neuroscience and, and micro states has been a good way to kind of combine the two of them in a, in a really nice way, because while I was working in, in doctor Rich off slab, I had the opportunity to do a lot of, a lot of really cool work and one thing I found out was that I hate doing molecular work.

00;05;57;26 - 00;06;18;19
Unknown
I cannot sit out a bench for like 4 or 5 hours at a time, but I really like coding. Find coding to be kind of a way of creative expression for me. I'm working like it's a small project on the side. I'm working on it on a game with my friends, and I find that to be a nice way to kind of express myself or like, forget about school and stuff.

00;06;18;22 - 00;06;45;08
Unknown
And now I just get to code and I still get to work with brains and learn about brains. That's awesome. That's such a great way to combine your interests. Thank you to The Media Depot for giving us a place to record the podcast. Check out their Instagram at Media Depot and website. It's Dot UK reeducate Media Depot to view all of their services.

00;06;45;10 - 00;07;16;22
Unknown
Have you presented your research at any conferences? Yes. Not my micro state research because that's that's more recent. But while I was in doctor at chef's lab, I so my my spring semester of my freshman year. So this was spring 2022. I applied to the UK Cure Fellowship, which was basically a $3,000 stipend. Now I think it's 5000 to do research with a UK mentor over the summer.

00;07;16;24 - 00;07;50;07
Unknown
And I was also taking a class, Anna for ten G which is neuro neurobiology of neurodegenerative diseases. And we talked a lot about like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and the underlying roots like tau protein tangles and amyloid beta plaques. And that really interested me. And I proposed a project to doctor Rich off, which was basically what if we looked at tau protein in honeybees because fun fact about honeybees, they kind of age in reverse.

00;07;50;10 - 00;08;23;01
Unknown
I that's I'm using that liberally. Like I think that's not really a correct thing to say. But as they get older, they switch their jobs. So the younger ones are nurses and the older ones are foragers, which means that the older bees have more complex tasks to do, which means their brain has to be more efficient. And one of Doctor Richard's papers actually talks about how mitochondrial respiration in the brain, which is something which typically declines in pretty much every model we see with age, actually increases with age in honeybees.

00;08;23;04 - 00;08;45;29
Unknown
So I thought, okay, well, I could connect this to my class and then look at tau protein. And so I got the cure fellowship for summer 2022 doing that project. And I presented it at I presented at the I mean, the the UK Summer Symposium and the UK Research Symposium in the spring that they have in like April or May.

00;08;45;29 - 00;09;15;06
Unknown
And then I also presented at the Midwest Ecology and Evolution conference in 2023. So you mentioned the UK Summer Symposium as well as the undergraduate showcase. You care to elaborate on what that experience is like? Yeah. So the UK Summer Symposium was basically the at the end of the summer when I did my cure fellowship, I had I didn't have results, but I had some information about what I did over the summer, and the project.

00;09;15;06 - 00;09;36;10
Unknown
So basically it was just this casual kind of setting where we were all sitting around in one of the ballrooms in the student center, and you had just a small group of people. Mark Pendergrast was there, which was fun to talk to him about my project and just hear him talk about whatever. And it just felt really easy to talk about stuff there.

00;09;36;12 - 00;09;59;08
Unknown
But I was told I could still put it on my CV and stuff, and it still counted as like a presentation sort of thing, which was cool. And then the research showcase showcase of undergraduate scholars, I think is the proper full thing. In April it was a bit more formal, so I, I gave an oral presentation, I prepared like a PowerPoint, and then, I got a slot and everything.

00;09;59;08 - 00;10;17;24
Unknown
And then I went and I presented to a room of people like one of, I think, 5 or 6 presentations in that room that day. And then there were also a bunch of posters downstairs, which really cool. A lot of people I knew were presenting. So it was fun to go around and see everybody's stuff. So how has research impacted your future career life goals?

00;10;17;26 - 00;10;38;04
Unknown
So I've been going back and forth actually in the last few years about whether I want to be like an engineer in industry or if I want to go into academia and do research for the rest of my life and like Duke professorship and stuff. And I think that doing research, being able to do research has helped me kind of see the positives and the negatives of both sides.

00;10;38;07 - 00;11;13;21
Unknown
In most cases, industry is like very much like a 9 to 5 job all the time. And you have like deadlines and like there's a strict hierarchy and a lot of organization everywhere. And research can be like that. It depends on the lab, I guess, but I think that the research settings that I prefer are sort of a bit more flexible, and that I think in general is true just because like sometimes you set up an experiment and something goes wrong, or you run out of a reagent, or you submit a paper and then it doesn't get published for like a year, and there's all sorts of hitches along the way in research that force

00;11;13;21 - 00;11;39;05
Unknown
it to be more flexible. And so learning that difference has been really nice. And then hopefully I'll be able to use that to guide whatever I do in the future. Yeah, definitely. So you mentioned that your labs that you enjoy, like the environment is more flexible. What exactly do those like responsibilities look like in those labs. Yeah. So this was definitely something I struggled with at first.

00;11;39;08 - 00;12;00;10
Unknown
And maybe maybe it was a consequence of me jumping straight into things like my freshman year while like I was also starting a bunch of hard classes. But it's very much you have a goal, you have to set some goal with yourself and your advisor, and then you have to set up milestones, and you have to try to reach those milestones.

00;12;00;10 - 00;12;20;16
Unknown
And your advisor will help you in most cases, hopefully. But in general, it's up to you to kind of do those things on time, and especially in an academic setting where you have classes and extracurriculars and all this other stuff that you have to plan around. It's not necessarily going to be during 9 to 5 all the time.

00;12;20;16 - 00;12;42;28
Unknown
Like there were definitely times where I went in later in the day or on weekends, which for me is fine personally, but it is something to note that a lot of a lot of researchers that I've met at least have had the same experience where it's something that they've got to do, but research has that sort of flexibility where you can you don't necessarily have, like coming to work at this time and then leave at that time.

00;12;43;00 - 00;13;11;03
Unknown
So it sounds like it's a lot of flexibility that you kind of talk about with your mentor. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Great. And then what's something you enjoy about research that you never thought you would? The social aspect I didn't really consider that like being in a lab would be a social thing, but it's really nice to be surrounded by people that are doing the same thing as you and have like, the same niche problems that you do.

00;13;11;05 - 00;13;32;25
Unknown
And I, I think some of my most memorable experiences throughout my undergraduate career have just been like doing like events with my lab, like my the summer where I did the Cure Fellowship. We had a couple of NSF, our students as well, and so we would be doing stuff all throughout the summer in Lexington, just showing them around the city.

00;13;32;27 - 00;13;48;29
Unknown
And we went to The Rocky Horror Picture Show that summer, which was really cool as a lab. So yeah, just being able to like, socialize with people and be friends with the people that you work with like that is really nice. That's so great. I feel like it's so nice to have that awesome community and those close friendships.

00;13;49;01 - 00;14;19;17
Unknown
Yeah, definitely. And do you care to elaborate for those who may not know what NSF are, you mean? Yeah. So NSF, the National Science Foundation has grants that they give out, I believe, to different labs where they can fund undergraduate students. So are you stands for Research experience for undergraduates. And it's funding for typically a summer. But I think it's just like roughly three months or like 12 weeks or however long of being able to do research in a lab.

00;14;19;19 - 00;14;44;24
Unknown
So you can you can get experience and, and a lot of schools all over the country have these, and it's easy to find them. I think NSF actually has like a website now where it's kind of like the common App where you fill out all of your information and then you can apply to different areas. Sounds easy. So based on your research experience thus far, what is a piece of advice you would give to any undergraduate student who's looking to get involved in research?

00;14;44;26 - 00;15;04;13
Unknown
Don't push yourself too hard. It's it's really easy in academics and and research to kind of get to the point where you're like, I can do all of this stuff. Like you can, you know, you can reach out to like two, three, four, or even professors if you want to, you know, and like get involved with whatever they're doing on top of your classes.

00;15;04;15 - 00;15;28;05
Unknown
But maybe take take some time to kind of evaluate how much you can give to the research and, and how much you you would be willing to commit and, and devote yourself. I actually found myself in a, in a situation, and this is the reason why I left the rich off lab, was that I just was not feeling motivated to do my work because I felt like I had so much.

00;15;28;05 - 00;16;05;26
Unknown
And on top of that, I wasn't really enjoying the stuff I was doing because like I said, it was all molecular work and it wasn't for me. So I spent, I think, too long kind of being unfair to the project that I was working on and it's just better for you and it's better for the project and the lab and science in general, that not to say that anybody is harming science, but it's better in general if you just, like, make sure that you're you're being fair to yourself, you know, with your time management and, and it's easy to become really, really stressed out.

00;16;05;29 - 00;16;29;04
Unknown
So kind of like know your own limits. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. That's a great piece of advice. So what organizations are you involved in around campus? Honestly, I haven't been all that much of an extracurricular person aside from research. At UK, mostly it's like I do my classes and then I have my research and then I hang out with my friends.

00;16;29;04 - 00;16;56;11
Unknown
But I do work at the study, which is like a peer tutoring, a little plug for transformative learning. It's a peer tutoring service where if you're in a handful of classes, then you can go in at any time whenever there's a tutor there and the schedule is on the website for the study, you can go in and there's somebody who's gotten A or B in that class before, and they can tutor you and help you with whatever's going on, and it's completely free.

00;16;56;14 - 00;17;15;02
Unknown
That's such a great resource for UK students to have. And then just a little fun question. What do you like to do in your free time? I like to rock climb a lot. Yeah, I like I like bouldering. There's a gym in Lexington. I don't know if you guys have heard of it, but it's lef la Escalade fitness.

00;17;15;02 - 00;17;38;03
Unknown
I believe they have like a weight room back there as well. So, like, you can just do lifting or whatever, but they have a lot of rock climbing walls and I go at least twice, sometimes more a week with my friends. Do you ever do the competition here at UK? No, no, I, I, I'm like, there are some really good climbers because we have the gorge like an hour away and the gorge is like a huge spot for climbing.

00;17;38;03 - 00;17;55;13
Unknown
Like people come from far away to go to the gorge and climb there. So there are some really cracked people at UK that's such a cool like hobby to have. Thank you for taking time to talk with us today and tell us a lot about your research. It's been really great getting to know you and your research experience.

00;17;55;20 - 00;18;16;09
Unknown
Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. It's been a very pleasant experience. If you ever need to be tutored, come down to the study. If you're in calc three, you can find my schedule online. And I'm the chemistry tutor. All right, well thank you. We wish you the best in your future endeavors. Thank you. Thank you for listening.

00;18;16;09 - 00;18;38;29
Unknown
Connect with us by following our Instagram at the podcast and at UK. You are our Facebook UK undergraduate research and our Twitter at UK UG r. This episode and other episodes can be found on our Spotify. Stay tuned for more.

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;26;24
Unknown
Hello and welcome to the Oh You Are a podcast. We are proud to announce the partnership with the office of the Vice President for research. Hi, my name is Diksha, and I'm Dalia. Welcome to the podcast. Today we're here with Katie Mushkin. So join us in welcoming Katie to the podcast. Hi. Thank you guys so much for having me.

00;00;26;26 - 00;00;47;20
Unknown
So I'm Katie, I'm in the class of 2026 and I'm a product design major. So Katie, could you briefly give us a summary on what your research is? Yeah. So I developed a cap for infant cranial orthotics. So for if you don't know what that is, that's one of the helmets that they give babies who have the flat spots on the back of their head known as play Joseph Lee.

00;00;47;23 - 00;01;10;07
Unknown
So they put on these helmets that they wear for anywhere for like 2 to 6 months. They work 23 hours a day. And so I shot at a prosthetics clinic, and a member of my family had one of the orthotics, my cousin. And what I've heard from both people that, you know, went to the clinic and from people in my family is one of the biggest issues is that they can't change how it looks.

00;01;10;09 - 00;01;31;25
Unknown
You can put stickers on it, you can put Velcro on it, you can put those on it. But ultimately, like when you get the design, like it comes in different patterns and colors, but once you pick it, that's it. And so I wanted to come up with a way to make interchangeable patterns for the helmets that parents feel more comfortable putting their children in them, and it doesn't impact like primal years of the children's development where they're like taking pictures.

00;01;31;25 - 00;01;50;25
Unknown
Parents want to show off their babies and make them feel more comfortable with that. So I developed a hat that fits snugly on any size of helmet because they range obviously in sizes based on the child's head. And it came in a range of patterns, incorporated bows and all of that, and had a little, like Bill for sun protection.

00;01;50;27 - 00;02;14;04
Unknown
And so I spent my time developing that. That's so cool. Thank you. So what kind of motivated you or inspired you to pick this specific area for your research? Yeah. So as I mentioned before, I was shot in a prosthetics clinic. So I am a product design major, which is super fun and interesting in terms of developing products and understanding, you know, ergonomics and how to work with people on products that they're interacting with.

00;02;14;06 - 00;02;29;14
Unknown
But it isn't what I want to do with my career. I think it's a really good background for what I want to do, which is being prosthetics. So I was kind of trying to find my niche. You know, I specifically was really interested in the orthotics and the cranial orthotics and so I wanted to come up with a way to incorporate that interest into product design.

00;02;29;15 - 00;02;51;22
Unknown
So then I kind of found my way into the hat. And how did you get connected with your current research mentor? So he actually was my professor of product design for my both the second semester of my first year of product design and then the semester after that, my first semester of my second year. So I did it in between, I believe, my first and second years of product design.

00;02;51;24 - 00;03;08;27
Unknown
And so he was my professor both the semester before and the semester after, when I kind of carried into, like after I had done my research, what I wanted to do with it. And so I was connected with him through him teaching my studio class. And he did a lot of work with prototyping and manufacturing and that sort of thing.

00;03;08;29 - 00;03;29;03
Unknown
And so I knew that he'd be a good resource to have if I wanted to, like, physically make the that. So what was your favorite part of the project? I was not expecting this at all, but I really like being able to present my research. I'm someone that, you know, doesn't really like talking in public, has a hard time like, you know, discussing my ideas with people.

00;03;29;03 - 00;03;44;22
Unknown
I get kind of insecure about my thoughts and it's something I'm really trying to work on. And so what really surprised me was when I had the opportunity to present my research that I really like being able to be like, oh, I know what's going on. I would love to share with you what I've learned from this and like, get the feedback that people were really interested in what I was doing.

00;03;44;24 - 00;04;06;02
Unknown
Where did you present your research? I presented at the undergraduate research fair at the University of Kentucky, but I also took it nationally to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research and Long Beach, California. And so I went with the other undergraduate research students in the University of Kentucky. And got to present there, which was an amazing opportunity. Yeah, no, that's really cool.

00;04;06;03 - 00;04;29;20
Unknown
So did you end up getting to, like, make a prototype of. Yes, I did, I wish I could have had it here today. I unfortunately it is not with me, but I did. I had to learn to sew for it, which was a really interesting opportunity. But I did able. I got my hands on an actual orthotic, from the place I was shadowing at, and was able to make the hats custom to that, and have the actual helmet with the hat on it available to show people.

00;04;29;26 - 00;04;45;04
Unknown
Oh, nice. So what was the general process? You had to go through to make the prototype? Yeah, it was it was not as straightforward as I thought it would be. I did it when I, I, like I said, after my first year of product design, so I had done kind of some projects, but never really saw anything all the way through.

00;04;45;04 - 00;04;59;06
Unknown
I was still like in the learning phase. And so this was kind of the first big project that I undertook. So I was not expecting it to be as kind of a back and forth as it was because, you know, originally I tried making something I was spandex were could like wrap around the helmet. And that's how it be secure.

00;04;59;06 - 00;05;13;02
Unknown
It is because it's tight. And then that didn't work because of the stitching. And then it kind of like squeezed it a little bit and it was hard to like pull on and off. And then so I had to go in a different direction. I tried making out of plastic and vacuum forming it so it could like snap on and off of the helmet.

00;05;13;04 - 00;05;29;26
Unknown
But then that posed a lot of dangers and it was like hard to use. And obviously I didn't want that for something that's associated with babies. And so then I found my winter hat, which is something that like was kind of a separate entity, entity that came on to the helmet as opposed to like fitting it snugly.

00;05;29;26 - 00;05;54;04
Unknown
And that's kind of where I found my nation. So it was kind of the like I had to go through lots of different iterations before I kind of came to the project that I had. Thank you to The Media Depot for giving us a place to record the podcast. Check out their Instagram at Media Depot and website. Itsuki Reedus slash Media Depot to view all of their services.

00;05;54;06 - 00;06;16;14
Unknown
And so going off of that, you mentioned there was a lot of back and forth between you and your mentor. How was that process? Being a part of mentor research and finding your voice in your research? Yeah. So it was I was really lucky to have a mentor that was pretty hands off in the best way in terms of, like, if I had a question, I could go to him for anything.

00;06;16;20 - 00;06;32;14
Unknown
Like I was having trouble. I was trying to mark it up on the computer aided design, and like 3D modeling. And so like, I was trying to figure that out and he was like, if you have questions, come with them. Otherwise you figure out how to do that. Like, this is your project. You do that. And so it was really great.

00;06;32;14 - 00;06;49;21
Unknown
Like he didn't like he didn't want to schedule anything with me. He didn't want to like oversee kind of what I was doing. He was like, if you like, you do your thing and then come see me. And like, obviously I had check ins for like when I had things that were do as a part of like having a research grant.

00;06;49;23 - 00;07;01;28
Unknown
But he sort of let me lead the way and come to him with any concerns that I had, which I thought was really great, because it kind of gave me the capacity to struggle a little bit where it wasn't like I just kind of was like, oh, I'm checking in with you. I'm struggling with this. Can you tell me what to do?

00;07;02;00 - 00;07;20;06
Unknown
I kind of like, had to figure it out myself. And then when I really had a problem be like, okay, now I'm stuck and I need help and I have to come up, come to you for that. So you you mentioned that you had a research grant. What funding opportunity did you receive? So it was like the College of Design Research grant, research fellowship.

00;07;20;06 - 00;07;49;22
Unknown
I don't know if it had a specific, but I don't believe it had a specific title. I think it was just do the College of Design. And how has your mentored research this past summer guided your future career plans? Yeah, it it definitely really guided my career plans because when I started this project, I had only shadowed one day at a prosthetics clinic and I decided, oh, this is what I want to do with my life, because I thought it was super interesting and kind of checked all my boxes, but I kind of threw myself into that, not really knowing how it would go.

00;07;49;24 - 00;08;07;14
Unknown
And so as part of my research, I did shadowed a clinic that did a lot of baby helmets. I could get a lot of that feedback and sort of work hands on with the orthotic and the design and then talk to professionals in the field. And so it really kind of re-emphasized this love for prosthetics in me and like, really solidified that.

00;08;07;14 - 00;08;22;05
Unknown
That's what I want to do with my life. And so research really brought that to light for me and kind of threw me in the deep end early on so that I was able to really know that this is what I wanted to do with my life. So what are your plans after you graduate to move towards those schools?

00;08;22;09 - 00;08;42;03
Unknown
I'm hoping to go to graduate school. There are 13 different prosthetic schools in the country, and I'm going to apply to as many of them as I can and hopefully go to one of those schools and then be a clinician. How many years is the program? So 2 to 3 depending on where you go, because it's it's mainly two years of graduate school and then I believe two years of residency.

00;08;42;05 - 00;09;04;01
Unknown
Oh okay. That's cool. Yeah. And this is tangentially related. But with the baby helmets is it like I mean, it is a medical like condition or like a thing, but is it more like cosmetic, like braces where they're like parents like, oh, my baby has a flat head? Or is there like a more medical reason? No, that's a great question.

00;09;04;01 - 00;09;26;06
Unknown
And it's something that clinicians get from parents all the time. It is more cosmetic. It doesn't affect like brain development, skill development. It's just purely cosmetic. But there is like a medical necessity for it that insurance grants, which is why so many people are afforded these helmets. Right. How have you incorporated your personal interests into your coursework and your research?

00;09;26;08 - 00;09;41;23
Unknown
So I don't know if I mentioned this already, but I was a biology major in my freshman year and I really loved it. I love biology, I love medicine, I love all of that work. And it was something I was really passionate about. But like the actual trajectory wasn't for me. I didn't want to go to medical school.

00;09;42;00 - 00;09;58;17
Unknown
I was really, you know, struggling in my classes. And it just I decided that that kind of like work wasn't for me as much as I cared about it. And so then I kind of went into product design, not really knowing what I wanted to do with it. I just knew that, like, I loved design, like that was another interest of mine.

00;09;58;19 - 00;10;20;00
Unknown
And so I think that by doing research and sort of like finding my place in prosthetics, I'm really able to combine the two things that I'm interested in. So I get what I love about product design and design as a whole. Overall concept. With my love for medicine in the medical field, in biology, and sort of find that intersection, which has been really great for both, you know, my coursework and my research.

00;10;20;02 - 00;10;39;14
Unknown
Are you involved in any extracurricular activities on campus? I am involved in three main extracurriculars, so I'm a member of Phi Sigma, which is a Stem sorority. I started off a biology major, which was way back when and when I first, then became involved in by Sigma around since then have changed my major, but it's still one of the things that I love the most.

00;10;39;16 - 00;10;58;12
Unknown
I'm on their executive board. I've held a bunch of officer positions like other than school work. That is what takes the most of my time, I love it. I also am a coordinator for Kassim at the University of Kentucky. That is an organization that helps kids whose parents have cancer, and I have been an outreach coordinator for three years now with them.

00;10;58;15 - 00;11;19;04
Unknown
And then I'm just a general body member of IDSA, which is the Industrial Design Student Association, which is sort of what all the product designers are in and how they get their networking and connections to the industry. So you're clearly very busy and have a lot of different responsibilities on campus. How do you manage all of that along with your research?

00;11;19;06 - 00;11;35;15
Unknown
I struggle with it. I'm not going to lie. I also have ADHD, so planning out all my tasks, making sure I get everything done. It is a struggle for me, but it really helps that I love everything that I'm doing. So it's like I'm I'm really passionate about my major and I love it. And you know, I love my sorority.

00;11;35;15 - 00;11;51;25
Unknown
I love my work with CAS. And then I'd say I a our commitment, but I love that too. And so it helps that I'm like really passionate about everything that I'm doing that it's like I want to do the work that I'm doing. And so then even when my days get busy or even when I have a lot to do, it's like all the things that I want to be doing.

00;11;51;28 - 00;12;11;28
Unknown
Another member of the podcast team is also involved because, and they told us that all of the volunteers have codenames. Are you able to share yours? Yes, absolutely. I go by Daisy. That's so cute. I really like it. I really like mine. Do you get to choose yours? Yeah, they're like, duplicates or does everyone, there are duplicates.

00;12;11;28 - 00;12;30;26
Unknown
Every so often I'll really try to have our own. I don't know exactly when Cassian was founded at the University of Kentucky, but, my year there, I don't think there was as many general body members. And, like, we didn't have as many returning, coordinators that year. And so I was really lucky when I came to my name that it wasn't taken because my favorite flower, it always has been.

00;12;31;02 - 00;12;45;17
Unknown
And then also my grandma died of cancer, which is why I, like, got involved in casseroles because, like, I was a kid who was impacted by someone having cancer, even though it wasn't my parent. And I had this little, Build-A-Bear from her when I was little that has her voice in it, and it's covered in daisies, so it's like a combination.

00;12;45;17 - 00;13;03;23
Unknown
So I wrapped and I'm like, oh, that's so cute. Yeah. So that's why I love it so much is like, I think that, like, if I was going to get like a tattoo or something, it would be a daisy just because it's like, oh, that's such a meaningful. Yeah, yeah. Cute. Well, that wraps up all the questions we have for you.

00;13;03;23 - 00;13;32;21
Unknown
Katy, thank you so much for joining us on the oh your podcast. Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for listening. Connect with us by following our Instagram at the podcast and at UK UGG are our Facebook UK undergraduate research and our Twitter at UK UGG for this episode and other episodes can be found on our Spotify.

00;13;32;24 - 00;13;36;29
Unknown
Stay tuned for more!

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;26;12
Unknown
Hello and welcome to the Oh You Are a podcast. We are proud to announce the partnership with the office of the Vice President for research. Hi, I'm Keenan, and I'm Diksha. Join us in welcoming our guest to the podcast. Hi, my name is Elina. Hi there. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being here. So, Lina, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

00;00;26;15 - 00;00;50;23
Unknown
Yes. I am a history major with a minor in biology. I'm from Lexington, so I grew up here. How did you get started in research? Well, I've always been interested in research since high school. Probably because my favorite subjects were like the history. Science. Kind of like the more research oriented subjects, anyway. And I'm a history major, so that's kind of my whole life.

00;00;50;23 - 00;01;18;29
Unknown
And every single course I'm doing research. So it was pretty easy for me to get involved around like my sophomore year into, you know, contacting professors, asking them what they were doing, reaching out to, like, different, you know, research grants, programs, that type of thing. How did you get connected to your current mentor? My current mentor, I went through the oh, you are undergraduate office and they were looking for some undergrads for the ICU recovery clinic.

00;01;19;00 - 00;01;43;09
Unknown
That's what I'm doing the summer. And so they're just looking for some undergrads. And I've been with them for it's going to be a year now. And so I've been doing like data collection interviews with patients like ICU survivors. I'm doing my own, like, personal project on health literacy. So what does your project entail and how is it different from what most people would think normal research or like a Stem research lab would do?

00;01;43;12 - 00;02;13;01
Unknown
Because I think most people when I say that I'm like doing Stem research as a history major, they get, you know, they get really confused and they should be. But that's okay. But I'm kind of mixing the humanities with Stem because I think while Stem research is super important for like the analytical side, making sure, you know, you're dotting i's and crossing your t's, that type of thing, the humanities actually make sure that, you know, the people involved are being taken care of.

00;02;13;02 - 00;02;34;27
Unknown
That we're asking the real, like, personable types of questions to make sure that, you know, we're treating the people that we're researching well, but also future folks that are going to do research with us. So with health literacy, I'm deliberately, you know, speaking with folks, making sure that, you know, I'm catching on to things like, do you understand what your health provider is telling you?

00;02;35;04 - 00;02;54;27
Unknown
Do you feel comfortable asking questions afterwards? Do you feel like you need to do a lot of follow ups? Do you feel represented by your health providers and your health care workers? That type of thing. So it's basically asking them their experience in health care. Exactly. Yeah. And which population of patients do you do the health literacy project with.

00;02;54;28 - 00;03;19;09
Unknown
Yeah. So I'm primarily doing it with folks right now who are survivors of from the ICU. So like real heavy illnesses you know sepsis stroke, that type of thing. If I get through the IRB, I'm going to try to branch out so I can go to different clinics. And also, just like waiting rooms, because I also just want to know the general person's perception of health care.

00;03;19;12 - 00;03;44;24
Unknown
So that's really cool. Thanks. Yeah. So you mentioned the IRB and the ICU. And for those of the audience that don't know, could you mind explaining what that means? Yeah. So the IRB is the institutional review board. And that's the kind of like the board that oversees that students and faculty and professionals are doing ethical research, basically.

00;03;44;26 - 00;04;09;28
Unknown
So it is kind of a long process because you have to explain every single, pretty much every single detail of your research, everything from, you know, overarching like what the research topic is and who's involved to how you're going to protect your, you know, your and your participants rights and like confidentiality, that type of thing. So it's really just, you know, making sure that we're doing research properly.

00;04;10;01 - 00;04;47;03
Unknown
And the ICU is the intensive care unit that most hospitals have for the most folks go into, patients go into when they've had, really militating or really just really militating illnesses or, medical emergencies. What are your current response abilities right now in your research? Right now I've been I've been in the clinic, the ICU recovery clinic, just going patient to patient, with my, my I have, like, a bunch of mentors, but the mentor I work most closely with is a Ph.D. student.

00;04;47;05 - 00;05;10;07
Unknown
And so I've just been going patient to patient with her because she's also a UTI. And while we're talking, I also provide them with the survey. I explain to them what I'm doing. I get to witness a lot of cool things, basic skills, just how patients and professionals interact. So I'm really just, you know, kind of I'm in the hands on portion of my research right now.

00;05;10;10 - 00;05;38;24
Unknown
That's super cool that you get to interact with patients directly. Would you say that it's because you're working in the ICU that there is sort of an emotional toll that it takes on you, or just something that affects you because of the procedures that have been done to these people? Yeah. No, that's a really good question. Luckily, a lot of the folks that I see right now, because they are survivors, it's been at least like a few months since they've been in the ICU.

00;05;38;24 - 00;05;58;10
Unknown
So they're in recovery. That's always good to see and hear from them that they're not in that really, you know, a tough spot in their life anymore. I get a lot of positivity from it actually, because I'm seeing these folks recover. I was actually like interviewing someone with my PhD student yesterday, and the whole time, like she was just talking about how happy she is to be walking around.

00;05;58;10 - 00;06;18;06
Unknown
And her goal now is, you know, to walk 8 to 10 miles a day, like she's excited to be up and ready. And she's real thankful to be, you know, walking and every day, you know, she's she wants to just keep improving. So it's more of a it's really making me, I guess, more positive than, you know, taking up too much of a toll on me.

00;06;18;12 - 00;06;41;18
Unknown
Yeah. You see, like the other, like over the hill. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. Just for the viewers. What this p t mean the physical therapist? Yes. So, like, basically in recovery, like in physical therapy? Yeah. For patients. Right. Right. Making sure their joints, their muscles that they're being used properly. Any pain, irritation, that type of thing that we're providing, you know, proper care and exercise.

00;06;41;19 - 00;07;06;25
Unknown
You mentioned that you were a history major, right. And and you're doing research in sort of, humanities Stem. Yeah. Would you say that doing this type of research has reinforced how you've gone about your major specifically, or how, like, how you've approached your major? Yeah, that's a good question. Well, the point of studying history is really the methodology.

00;07;06;28 - 00;07;28;23
Unknown
So, you know, everything from that goes from everything, you know, from reading the books to interacting with people sometimes to being at the archives or, you know, watching documentaries. So every step counts for history because the bittersweet thing about history is that the answers are there. It's just we not we might not always have access to them. What I'm doing right now is hope.

00;07;28;25 - 00;07;52;26
Unknown
Hopefully for future folks studying history, I'm hoping that I'm providing all the answers that I possibly can. You know, all of the different interviews and people's perceptions through the surveys that I have all of these answers for them. I'm going to keep them recorded. I'm going to take care of those things, you know, put them in the proper place so that in the future, if people need my research for something, that it's there for them and the answers are more accessible for those folks.

00;07;52;26 - 00;08;13;09
Unknown
I'm just like constantly thinking about the methods I'm using, and hopefully that other researchers can use my work in some way, if that makes sense. Yeah it does. I feel like in history, perspectives are sometimes lost just because of like, record keeping. Yeah, I was like that. Yeah, yeah. But like, history isn't like by the victors or whatever.

00;08;13;09 - 00;08;38;26
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So in that vein, you do archival research or this is the archival research. Is that separate? Right. That was separate. I did archival research all last year. And I'm actually the basis of that research. I'm going to I'm against fellow. So the the basis of that research is going to be my gain spaces. Could you elaborate more on Gainesville location.

00;08;38;28 - 00;09;00;15
Unknown
Yes of course the Games Fellowship is a humanities fellowship. Basically, anyone who has any you don't have to be a humanities major. Anyone who has an appreciation for the humanities can apply for the fellowship. And it's a real small cohort of like 12 students, and it's a two year commitment. And so you're working with a bunch of different professors, and you're seeing the humanities in different lights.

00;09;00;17 - 00;09;21;03
Unknown
And then your senior year, you are required to do a thesis, which can be anything from like, you know, I know a girl who's doing, a novel to other people who are writing just traditional papers. Other people, you know, are doing magazines, you know, just to showcase their research. And then we have to defend it, like dissertation type defense in April.

00;09;21;05 - 00;09;44;21
Unknown
So wish me luck. Thank you to The Media Depot for giving us a place to record the ou r podcast. Check out their Instagram at Media Depot and website. It's that you keep edu slash Media Depot to view all of their services. It seems like you've done a lot of different types of research. Have you been able to present it in any cool places that you'd like to talk about?

00;09;44;24 - 00;10;17;20
Unknown
Sure, yeah. The archival research that you mentioned, I actually was able to go to England to, for example, I was at the University of Warwick in Coventry, and it's for if people know what and Kur is the National Conference of Undergraduate Research. There's also something called World Kur, which is the World Congress of Undergraduate Research. So everyone from the, you know, the entire world was at the University of Warwick in April last year or this past academic year, and I was able to present my archival research there.

00;10;17;21 - 00;10;44;22
Unknown
I had a, you know, I had a post on a presentation. I was able to go with my other Learning Lab interns. The Learning Lab interns are like my fellow undergraduate Semi archivists. So they each one of us had a different collection we were working with. And what do these collections entail? Like what are they specifically? So a collection could be literally anything because these collections are unprocessed archives basically.

00;10;44;22 - 00;11;09;17
Unknown
And so some people had one of my friends had the thickest like textbook looking thing. It was all in Spanish, but it was, I believe it was some some Spanish priests, I think, from Mexico's like accounts of life in this like nunnery, while other people had just photographs upon photographs upon photographs. I, I got one single like notebook.

00;11;09;19 - 00;11;40;07
Unknown
I really don't get much. It's like a it was a financial ledger. There were records from this group of African American women over in Mayfield, Kentucky, about 20, I think 20 women and it was from the 1920s, and they were a group that called themselves the Self-denial Savings Club. Basically, they were denying themselves of certain niceties and, you know, being able to buy certain things by putting in a pool of a collective fund, basically.

00;11;40;09 - 00;12;02;20
Unknown
And it was a way for them to save up money and in order to afford Christmas presents. So I did research with that ledger. And yeah, that's what I was able to present. What does archival research entail? Like in terms of restoring these pieces? So basically because they were unprocessed, we were the first. Each person had their collection.

00;12;02;20 - 00;12;21;14
Unknown
We were the first people to open up those boxes and to be able to read those writings and to see those photographs. So that was that was a crazy experience, specially for someone who is in love with history as I am. I had to, you know, I was taking notes, going through this ledger, making sure that I was properly taking care of the ledger.

00;12;21;15 - 00;12;39;07
Unknown
A fun fact is that you actually don't use gloves, because gloves are going to mess up the papers. So, you know, you just wash your hands easily, you know, go through the go through your collection. So I was taking notes. Everyone was taking notes. I was taking some photos. Some of the pages I had to like, I had to get them scanned so I could look at them later.

00;12;39;10 - 00;13;01;23
Unknown
And then afterwards I had to like basically detail, like what the ledger was like, who, what, where, when, why. And that's the processing part of it. Awesome. Or how does the UK archive receive these products? Are you sure they're all just donated? Why would we have this old Spanish textbook? But there is someone who has some sort of connection to UK and they were like, I don't know where else to put this.

00;13;01;25 - 00;13;28;26
Unknown
I'll give it to UK archive. So why exactly would you have to use your hands over gloves? Because I know in some certain situations, like in food prep, it's better to use gloves than using your hands. They're worried that you know gloves because a lot of times you are dealing with the oldest papers ever. And so, you know, the rubbing of the gloves, you know, that type of harsh material on paper is going to cause some damage.

00;13;29;03 - 00;13;51;06
Unknown
So it's better to just, you know, wash your hands, have clean hands and, you know, delicately with your own fingers, go through the pages or go through the photographs to avoid any possibility of damage. Okay. So based on what you have mentioned, it seems like you have taken an interdisciplinary approach to your research. What advice do you have for other undergraduate students who would like to do the same?

00;13;51;08 - 00;14;29;00
Unknown
I think I would say I would tell students to just kind of throw themselves in there. And that's not to say I'm like a reckless or disrespectful way, because we never want to be disrespectful when we're doing research, but more in a sense of like completely immerse yourself in the engagement of research, you know, allow yourself to fall into those rabbit holes, to debate people, to ask all those questions, and to accept that it's going to be kind of frustrating and complicated sometimes, but it's going to be special no matter what, because this is your take on research.

00;14;29;02 - 00;14;51;24
Unknown
How has research impacted your future and what you want to do specifically? I definitely know that research is going to be a component of what I do in the future, because I definitely plan on applying for like research grants and stuff before pursuing any form of professional or grad school. But when I do get to that stage, I definitely want to do focus myself.

00;14;51;24 - 00;15;15;10
Unknown
And careers that make research are a large component. So, you know, maybe going into like law or going to the full on PhD academia route. That's also an option. But yeah, definitely. Now I know that I research is where I thrive. So it's got to be in there somewhere. So what's something you enjoy about research now that you never thought you would?

00;15;15;13 - 00;15;48;01
Unknown
I feel like I've always enjoyed it. It's been it's been cool as an undergraduate to actually have a mentor and like, sometimes like a team to work with because, you know, before in school and stuff, it's just whatever you wanted to do. It was pretty a hands off with teachers, but with an actual mentor. And they're, you know, with you kind of every step of the way, whether it really be like, the nitty gritty things that you need to take care of or it just be, you know, asking how you're doing or if you need help.

00;15;48;04 - 00;16;09;01
Unknown
And then the people that I've worked with, my peers, you know, we're constantly, you know, basically like hyping each other up, making sure that everyone feels cared for and positive and welcomed in research. So I really appreciate it. Being able to work so closely with people. That's the best part. It is. That's why you've mentioned a lot about your research now.

00;16;09;02 - 00;16;36;15
Unknown
Are there any extracurriculars that you do that you'd like to highlight? Sure. On campus, a lot of different orgs, executive board for like Asian American Association, the diversity, Equity and Inclusion Coalition, and the Empower Women's org. Those like leadership positions do take up a lot of my time. Besides that, I really enjoy hiking. I'm an avid hiker. Being from Kentucky, we've got some of the best hiking spots anywhere.

00;16;36;18 - 00;17;08;20
Unknown
I enjoy cooking. I used to work at a bookstore, so I am an avid reader as well. I used to run before, like I got real busy. I used to have. I used to run a book club. Thank you for listening. Connect with us by following our Instagram at the podcast and at UK UG are our Facebook UK undergraduate research and our Twitter at UK UG for this episode and other episodes can be found on our Spotify.

00;17;08;23 - 00;17;20;27
Unknown
Stay tuned for more!

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;37;07
Unknown
Hello and welcome to the podcast. We are proud to announce the partnership with the office of the Vice President for research. I'm deep, and I'm Diksha. And join us in welcoming Elizabeth Rexroth. Hi, I'm Elizabeth. I'm a biology major here at UK. Going into my senior year. I work with Doctor Nielsen at the Gluck Equine Research Center studying equine parasitology, and I also work for the Division of Laboratory Animal Resources.

00;00;37;10 - 00;01;01;24
Unknown
And they supply veterinary resources and husbandry for all of the research staff here at UK. Yeah. Yeah, it's a huge department. Yeah. How many mice do you think we have in there? Oh, definitely thousands. Yeah, probably tens of thousands, maybe. Plus the rats. Yeah. Yeah. And the monkeys? Yes. Yeah. Not as many rats and monkeys, though. And they also have dogs today.

00;01;01;25 - 00;01;35;05
Unknown
I was actually with the spiny mice. Those are the original. Yes. It's the biggest colony of spiny mice on, I think, in the US. Maybe on the continent as well. They're from Northern Africa and they used in regenerative studies. And I was helping with the shipment of moving those to another lab. Can you walk us through how you got into this facility and to De La and tell us what dealer stands for and how some other like, student who was interested in this type of research, could you get involved?

00;01;35;07 - 00;01;56;08
Unknown
Yeah. So De La stands for the Division of Laboratory and more resources. How I got into it is because I was really looking for other animals to experience, and I think that's a great way to, get into De La on campus. It's a really great internship. I got into it as I was looking for other veterinary internships.

00;01;56;08 - 00;02;25;06
Unknown
It's really hard to get into clinics in Lexington. They oftentimes don't want students because we can't be trained and then immediately leave because that's no benefit to their office. But at de la, we do husbandry and then we do a summer of veterinary services. The internship process isn't very lengthy, and the application I submitted a resume. I went on the tour and then started.

00;02;25;09 - 00;02;46;24
Unknown
Yeah. Well, how many years have you been doing it now? I started doing it last May. It's a two summer internship. So one summer is husbandry, and then the second summer is vet services. You also mentioned you are in equine science. Yes. And so what does that project look like? I've been doing equine parasitology for about three semesters.

00;02;46;26 - 00;03;23;03
Unknown
Next semester will be my fourth working with the Neilson Lab. I've worked on several projects. The first one was the Lima biome study. So what that is trying to do is so many because we're working on many horses. And then Lima biome, because it's the microbiome that horses have of nematodes. So they're parasites essentially. And what we did is we are trying to make it so that developing and infill monarchs, which are things that kill intestinal parasites for horses.

00;03;23;05 - 00;03;56;00
Unknown
We're trying to make it so that studying those, you don't have to euthanize the animal, because typically what's been done in previous history of athletic development is you count all of the worms within different sections of the intestine, and then you also have to get the ones that are like, insisted inside to make sure you get everything. What we're doing is we're collaborating with the Namibian project in Canada, which has helped in other projects trying to do this in other species.

00;03;56;02 - 00;04;26;20
Unknown
If you collect the fecal matter instead of euthanizing the horse, we're trying to see if that is just as effective as euthanizing it. In the studies, especially since a lot of the and the monarchs have developed resistance. So year by year there are fewer and fewer that actually get rid of the population of worms. And kind of like in bacterial resistance, you can imagine as you kill them off, more resistant ones are able to survive and thrive and then reproduce.

00;04;26;22 - 00;04;54;18
Unknown
Basically. Like similar to antibiotic resistance, but in parasites. I wonder, how do you think that resistance occurs just because like theoretically it's within like one horse? I think it occurs, based on different populations. So I think in different locations there are different levels of resistance because the life cycle of the parasite. So it's within the organism and then it's like outside.

00;04;54;18 - 00;05;26;06
Unknown
So the horses pick it up from the grass, it goes into their intestines. And then whenever they defecate, it goes all over the field. So another way to like keep infection from spreading is good field management and cleaning up the fields. Yeah. You did the equine research before you got into dealer. Yes that's correct. So was there a specific person that helped you transition into dealer, or did you just decide to reach out and it just happened?

00;05;26;06 - 00;05;51;24
Unknown
Or like what attracted you to dealer from the Equine Research that you already did? I think I always really found it interesting working with laboratory animals. So kind of wanted to see that side of it, because the horses, they they're in this gray area where they aren't really laboratory animals. We kind of treat them like they are, but they're really just like horses.

00;05;51;27 - 00;06;16;05
Unknown
And they're under USDA that protects them and makes rules about what can and can't be done with them. But they aren't like rats and mice. Are they like racehorses or. No. So we have two different groups of horses. We have the many horses that have been given for all of their lives, so they have a lot of resistance within them.

00;06;16;13 - 00;06;46;07
Unknown
And then there's also this other herd that hasn't been given antiemetics since, I think the 90s, and they've been doing pretty well without any medications whatsoever. It's a very long term project for them, because horses take a while to grow. And you said these horses are also from the 90s? Yes. So they were. This colony was originally started by Doctor Lyons, which is the predecessor to my API, Doctor Nielsen.

00;06;46;09 - 00;07;12;15
Unknown
And I just wanted to give kind of a shout out to Doctor Nielsen's YouTube, because anyone that's interested to definitely learn a lot more going onto his YouTube page. What's the YouTube channel called? I think it's just Doctor Martin Nielsen. You could also find it looking up. Gluck Equine Research, Parasitology. Generally when we think about bad medicine, we think about domesticated animals like cats and dogs and all of that.

00;07;12;22 - 00;07;38;10
Unknown
But you have had the chance to work with laboratory animals and what is the difference in caring for laboratory animals versus domesticated animals? I think a big difference is you kind of wouldn't expect it, but laboratory animals are a lot, and they have a lot in common with large animals. So we don't go into very like specifics on diagnosis and treatment, and they're generally able to be treated by the vet techs.

00;07;38;13 - 00;08;04;17
Unknown
They don't require a lot of care compared to companion animals, since mice are pretty light like you can get like 100 mice for comparison. Not very much. It does depend on the species and the variant. We do a lot of light. I do a lot of smearing ointment on mice, but otherwise there's no like orthopedics. There's no there's not a lot of emergency cases that you see because usually the lab will take care of those serious cases.

00;08;04;20 - 00;08;27;22
Unknown
It's a lot of fight wounds, like dermatitis. Just like very simple, straightforward medical things that we treat. What other like day to day duties do you have? So like I said, I do enrichment as well. We do rounds, which is checking on all of the mice that have been made tests. They they've had reports put in that they need medical care.

00;08;27;25 - 00;08;51;27
Unknown
I help with treatments. We also treat our dogs, monkeys, other species that we work with. We do exams when needed on like other animals, kind of like at the spiny mice. I do sample collection. So like if labs need our help doing something, we will go and help them do that. And then I do aid in some surgical procedures too.

00;08;52;02 - 00;09;19;28
Unknown
So that's fun. That's one of my favorite things to do. Yeah. Such as they do a lot of like biopsies sample collections. They also do surgeries on like all kinds of different species for different kinds of ports and like medical devices. Thank you to The Media Depot for giving us a place to record the podcast. Check out their Instagram at Media Depot and website.

00;09;20;01 - 00;09;28;18
Unknown
It's you keep to use The Media Depot to view all of their services.

00;09;28;20 - 00;10;01;05
Unknown
You worked in the E.R. at some point. How have your experiences working in the E.R. then? Different than working with animal models, as well as the same? Okay. So a big way that they're different is the dividing up of work. It's a lot more self-paced at DLR than it is in emergency practice. I'm sure anyone can understand that emergency is super stressful at times, whereas at De La, it's very flexible as far as when you do things throughout the day.

00;10;01;07 - 00;10;26;08
Unknown
Unless there is like a super urgent case, like a mice that needs urgent care. The only similarities are that you're working with animals. You are providing medical care. What do you do outside of working at De La and equine science research that you do? I am very busy with school and work, so I don't have a super big amount of hobbies.

00;10;26;11 - 00;10;58;09
Unknown
I am an officer in QBR, which stands for queer students participating in research and that's, an organization that was started last semester. And they're advocating for, representation for people that are in research and that are queer and for connecting, accepting mentors to students. Is there anywhere people can check out Shakespeare? We do have an Instagram.

00;10;58;15 - 00;11;27;27
Unknown
It's QBR underscore student org. We also are on people involved. And accept messages either place. What events do you all have planned for the semester or for the upcoming semester? So we have two kinds of events member events and seminars. We're working on planning both of those for the semester right now. So if you could give one piece of advice to a student who is seeking research, what would you say?

00;11;27;29 - 00;12;02;08
Unknown
I would say reaching out to people or professors or going to events, seeing what their research is light, and then go into the Office of Undergraduate Research is also a really great place to check out those new people. I'm sure they have events regularly. I think I went to one before I started out, because I was originally interested in one lab, but, going to those events helped me figure out what I was interested in, what labs, can offer, how they're different, and finding a mentor.

00;12;02;10 - 00;12;06;14
Unknown
Yeah. Comparing.

00;12;06;17 - 00;12;31;20
Unknown
How did you end up getting connected with your, equine research mentor? So I really wanted to do something at work. I knew that for sure. And then I was going through their page. And I know this now, but not through, not while I was experiencing it. But my mentor is just, like, amazing. Like he's a rock star in his field.

00;12;31;22 - 00;13;00;21
Unknown
And I noticed that just through his, online presence, he's got, like, a huge CV. It's like, it's like a whole book of publications that he's got. And I was also really interested in parasitology because as a high schooler in my mom's, vet clinic, I did some, like, parasitology testing. That was, like, very minor, but still made me curious and made me want to seek something out like that.

00;13;00;24 - 00;13;26;12
Unknown
How is growing up in a household with your mom being a veterinarian, like, were you instantly attracted to what she did, or was she your role model for everything, or did it deter you and then you came back? I think at first it deterred me because I got to see the raw, like what happens every day to day and like what happens when you go home and how it affects your life and how it takes up so much of your time and your energy.

00;13;26;14 - 00;13;51;06
Unknown
And just like the hard parts of being a vet. That at first I was really scared of going into it. But then as I got into college, I started to really appreciate what she did and really wanted to go into medicine. What would you say the hardest parts are then about being a vet? I mean, the obvious is like having the for done animals.

00;13;51;08 - 00;14;22;19
Unknown
I think that's something that a lot of people that go into that want to go into veterinary medicine. That's a big deter for them because you can love animals, like with all your heart, but you can't like, love them, that it impedes your ability to practice good medicine. A student that wants to go into veterinary sciences is there like a specific veterinarian that like studies animals, like zoos versus home kept pets like are their specialties and what do they entail?

00;14;22;22 - 00;14;57;10
Unknown
Yes, they're definitely specialties. So laboratory animal medicine is actually one of the specialties that you can go into as a vet. They're also the typical specialties you would find in human medicine. So like radiology, oncology, dermatology, that kind of stuff. And then a lot of veterinary schools allow you to specialize in large or small animal, or exotics or zoo animal as you go into your later years of vet school.

00;14;57;12 - 00;15;27;09
Unknown
And then furthering your education is how you did those specialties. So like doing different specialized programs after you're out of vet school. So I know the University of Kentucky doesn't have a veterinary school. Yes, there's around approximately 30 across the nation. How has research here at U-K set you aside from other students, competing for these same schools across the nation?

00;15;27;11 - 00;15;55;20
Unknown
I think it's definitely set me apart. Species was a big part of the veterinary application that schools consider is the amount of species that you've worked with, and the depth that you've done into with them. So I have a lot of experience handling rodents, working, with monkeys, which is very uncommon. Especially since, like, we don't have a lot of like zoos in the area, stuff like that.

00;15;55;23 - 00;16;20;02
Unknown
So I think it's prepared me for vet school in that way. I also think it's given me a different perspective. Like understanding research, I think as most, a lot of people in vet school do research. And so getting a head start on that helps a lot. It's also got me interested in possibly doing laboratory animal research after grad school.

00;16;20;04 - 00;16;55;23
Unknown
Just because it's a really great position to work in. I really appreciate the work life balance that they have compared to, say, your vets or clinic. That's. How has research impacted your future career and life goals? I think research has given me a lot of perspective, especially if I want to go into clinic one day. Being able to see as a child, and as, as someone working under my mom's clinic, I got to see a lot of the benefits of those researchers.

00;16;55;26 - 00;17;24;29
Unknown
A lot of the medications they developed, and procedures that can help patients. And I guess that's also part of what drove me to, research in the first place was seeing those outcomes. And so I'm hoping that if I do go into clinic, I am able to see, and understand the research behind all of the practices that I use, all the medications, and how, rigorous the studies have been to help make sure that those are good for clients.

00;17;25;02 - 00;17;51;22
Unknown
You've mentioned that vets also have residency and all of that. Is there any particular path you were thinking of? I haven't really decided at the moment. I'm applying to vet school right now, so my plan is to investigate that more within vet school. And have those conversations with my advisors and professors to see what the best route for me is, because I've seen a lot.

00;17;51;25 - 00;18;24;09
Unknown
But I think there's still a lot more for me to explore and see my options. So you mentioned you a biology major. I know we have the animal science major here at the University of Kentucky. So what drew you more towards biology and not like animal sciences? So kind of like I said earlier, as I got to UK and started seeing, more of just everything, I was kind of drawn to medicine more than I was drawn to veterinary medicine specifically.

00;18;24;11 - 00;18;49;12
Unknown
So at first I was a psychology major, actually, and thought I might want to go into human medicine, maybe become a psychiatrist or one of those associated fields. But then I changed to biology because I still knew that I, wanted to be in medicine. But at that point, I was leaning more towards veterinary science. And so I was taking some time to kind of decide between the two.

00;18;49;15 - 00;19;16;21
Unknown
In biology, there's a lot of overlap with veterinary and human medicine, and I kind of wanted that perspective of it versus just focusing on animals. When was that decision made? Was it through your transition from freshman the sophomore year or. I think I made that decision after the first semester of my freshman year. Okay. And this was prior to your equine science research?

00;19;16;22 - 00;19;42;11
Unknown
Yes. Yes. So, how did you transition into equine science? What drew you to that laboratory? I think one of the main things that drew me was, that I wanted to be more involved with equine science since, the equine industry in Kentucky and in Lexington specifically is so big. There's a lot of opportunities here to get involved with it.

00;19;42;14 - 00;20;07;16
Unknown
And they're all like, they're just an amazing species, too. I'm sure anyone that's, like, driven down the roads out here and, like, sees a big field know how. Those are pretty. They are and like, how just stunning it is to see them. Due to technical difficulties, the end of this episode was cut off. Thank you to Elizabeth for sharing your story.

00;20;07;18 - 00;20;32;03
Unknown
Thank you for listening. Connect with us by following our Instagram at the podcast and at UK under our Facebook UK Undergraduate Research and our Twitter at UK. UG for this episode and other episodes can be found on our Spotify. Stay tuned for more!

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Unknown
Hello everybody, and welcome to the OUR Podcast. We are proud to announce the partnership with the University of Kentucky and the Office of the Vice President for research. Today, we are going to be talking to Kenan Andre Flores, who is a senior majoring in biochemistry. He is a driven undergraduate researcher focusing on cancer. And today we will be listening to his research story.

00;00;30;22 - 00;00;53;23
Unknown
Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and, give us a brief overview of your research experiences and how you ended up in this lab? Yeah. So, I started doing research when I was in high school through a program at Lafayette High School, and the program was just doing research at UK. It was called like UK research, and there was no particular reason why I wanted to do it.

00;00;53;23 - 00;01;14;00
Unknown
It was just a curiosity that I had to do research. So I was like, let's go for it, let's do it. And so the first part of that was to find a research lab, and I didn't know where to start. So as most people who are getting into research, they just scour through all the professor's emails and see what interest them.

00;01;14;02 - 00;01;40;05
Unknown
The professor that I landed on was Doctor Stephen Randall Voss, who works with axolotl and Regeneration, and I thought that was a it was an interesting start for research, because I never thought you could apply that type of mechanism to humans, which is what he's trying to do. But, it was still a good way to see how research is like and what the collaborative space of research is.

00;01;40;07 - 00;02;04;25
Unknown
So after doing Doctor Voss lab, I also applied to another lab that year, but they didn't have space for me in the lab. So that lab was Doctor Blackburn's lab, which was the lab that I'm currently in. And so now I'm currently running my own research project on a type of pediatric brain cancer. It's called, diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma.

00;02;04;27 - 00;02;30;11
Unknown
It forms in the brain stem of kids ages 0 to 11. And the outlook for it is not good, as in, the lifespan usually after diagnosis is about two years. So doing research on that has been very good for my heart, because it's giving me a different outlook on the world and not and outside of just doing research itself.

00;02;30;13 - 00;03;10;04
Unknown
Yeah. So you mentioned, the very first time that you tried to join the lab, you actually got rejected because her lab was full, right? Doctor Jessica Blackburn's. And so how has that shaped, your overall experience for approaching, mentors, like, down the line to do research? Definitely was a big step for how I viewed research or just applying to things in general, because dealing with rejection that early is, good experience to have, because a lot of the time, people in high school or people like when they're younger, they kind of get into most things that they apply for.

00;03;10;07 - 00;03;40;25
Unknown
And it's a good feeling, even though if it's like a hard, a hard program or whatever, it's a good feeling again. But a lot of the times I feel people are able to get into the program they want. So having that, first, first time experience of getting rejected, gave me a different outlook on how my life would be in the next four years at my undergrad and that, like, whatever I wanted to do was not going to be what the way that was going to be, pretty much.

00;03;40;27 - 00;04;04;17
Unknown
So it was definitely good to experience that rejection. And it also taught me that even though you did get rejected, you can try again, which is what I did the next year during my freshman year, and I'm in the lab now. So I was it was a good experience to have that early in my life. And what was that experience like reaching back out to her again before your freshman year?

00;04;04;20 - 00;04;28;07
Unknown
Reaching back to her was I was nervous because I was like, maybe I got rejected because they my resume was enough, or maybe I got rejected because I wasn't qualified enough. So I was a bit scared to apply again. And but I told myself that I'd probably regret it if I didn't apply again. So I just sent out an email again.

00;04;28;08 - 00;04;52;28
Unknown
I definitely looked over what I did before, revise what I did in case it was that, and I reached back out to her and she was like, yeah, let's set up an interview and let's talk. And just getting to that point was a good, change in my direction towards research, because I was stepping into something different than what I had in high school.

00;04;53;00 - 00;05;36;14
Unknown
Tell us a little bit about, your research project and what your work entails. Yeah. So I previously talked, that I'm studying a type of pediatric brain cancer called the Diffuse Intrinsic Punting glioma, or Dipg. So my work deals with is a cell line from a patient with Dipg. And this cell line is resistant to radiation. So my overall goal of my project is to find a therapeutic option to either bring back desensitization to irradiation of the Dipg cells or to just kill the cells altogether, because whenever a patient has cancer, we want to get rid of the cells.

00;05;36;17 - 00;06;03;09
Unknown
So for my project, we have those cells, and we're combining chemotherapeutic and, radio therapeutics to see if any of the drugs would work in combination with these cells. What is the correlation between the cell work that you do and, the zebrafish model that you mentioned? For my project, we're testing nine drugs. And those drugs came from previous, data that we used with the zebrafish.

00;06;03;11 - 00;06;28;07
Unknown
The zebrafish that we used, we knocked out, its activity from the p53 gene. It's called the guardian of the cell. And it deals with any mutations, any mess ups that the cell cycle makes. So we removed all that activity from these zebrafish. And it was our theory to that with the zebrafish not having this p53 activity, they would become radio resistant.

00;06;28;07 - 00;06;51;08
Unknown
And we found that once we irradiated these fish, they would still live regardless of being irradiated. So we took these fish and we tested an FDA approved drug pan of like 1700 drugs with these fish, which is why zebrafish are so nice. We can test so many drugs so fast. And out of all those drugs, we found these nine drugs that worked well in bringing back this sensitization in the zebrafish.

00;06;51;11 - 00;07;23;26
Unknown
We, theorized that these nine drugs could also be used for the cells directly of Dipg. And that's what we're testing for my project. You mentioned that one of your favorite parts of research was getting to present your research in conferences. So, what conferences have you presented at and, what did that process look like? Yeah. So, I'd say as of now, there were two there were like a few little conferences I, presented my research at.

00;07;23;26 - 00;07;51;08
Unknown
But the two I'd really like to highlight are Abbott Hammes, which is the annual biomedical research convention for minority scientists, which is great for, many people on campus because it covers a wide range of people from those who are, non Caucasian race, those who are disabled, those are non cisgendered, which is great. Gives it gives that great opportunity for all the people on campus who do research.

00;07;51;08 - 00;08;32;03
Unknown
And so that conference was in Anaheim of last fall. And it was really cool to just even outside of research, it was cool to travel for doing my research. It was like a little reward to do my research for in doing my research and for that, for that conference. It was a big stepping point for me in research because not only did I feel like super accomplished that I was able to, present my research away from Kentucky, but I also saw how people that looked like me and jumped over these barriers that they had to face, were able to present in a research conference like this as well.

00;08;32;06 - 00;08;56;18
Unknown
So I think that was a really great opportunity for me to present my research, and then a great opportunity for other people to present their research on campus. Another good opportunity to present their research is Anker, which is the National Conference for Undergraduate Research. That was this past spring in, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, which was a nice little town in Wisconsin where we presented on the on the campus.

00;08;56;18 - 00;09;24;20
Unknown
And that was a cool experience to see just so many different, research specialties and seeing all of those different people come in from around the world. And how accomplished that they were. And I got to learn a lot about not only the my specific field, but how everyone, interacts in science, like at Anker, one, research specialty that that really stuck out to me was people who did research in arts.

00;09;24;22 - 00;09;47;27
Unknown
There was a whole, arts exhibit gallery at the conference, and it was cool to see how people interpret it, interpret their, outlooks in life and, put that in their form of art. So I think that's a great opportunity to have at, to present your research. So you got involved in research in high school and what was that difference?

00;09;47;29 - 00;10;17;02
Unknown
What was the difference between doing research in high school and the responsibilities in college, if that makes sense. So in in doing research in high school, it's pretty much like being babysat by the Pi, because when I was an even in high school, I was so like unfocused. And people know that about high schoolers. I don't I don't know about you too, but I was just very unorganized and not the greatest student.

00;10;17;02 - 00;10;56;01
Unknown
So they don't really expect the most, responsibility from those who are in high school, especially because they haven't done research before, mostly. So it was my Pi giving me pretty easy tasks to do, and he was just watching me, like behind my shoulder and compared to now, I it's definitely a lot more different because now I'm able to, talk to my Pi or my mentor about what project I want to test, and now I can just do it on my own and go about how I want to do my experiment on my own, compared to being watched over all the time when I was in high school.

00;10;56;04 - 00;11;24;24
Unknown
So you've done research on two different types of animal models, axolotls and zebrafish. And those are also models that, are not necessarily as widely known as research animals. And so I was kind of wondering, what is it like, like what is the thinking behind, you know, designing experiments that can be applied to humans? A lot of people who think of using animal models in research think of mice and rats.

00;11;24;24 - 00;11;52;18
Unknown
So the the difference between using the models that I've used before, which were axolotls and zebrafish, the main difference that I'd say is the rate at which they develop, because for mice, you mice and rats, you usually, use them for a long time, many months. And like, even some projects can go for years, but for, axolotls or zebrafish, we like to use them right as they're born.

00;11;52;18 - 00;12;17;01
Unknown
So we take embryos both for axolotls and for zebrafish. And we, we usually, remove them from their, embryonic sac. And from there, we are able to instantly, do any experiment that we want on them compared to mice, which you'd have to probably grow up and feed and just take care of for a while before actually getting into your experiment.

00;12;17;03 - 00;12;55;24
Unknown
You mentioned, the model you work with, which is zebrafish. And how does how does care around, these specific fish, work on it like a day to day basis typically. Yeah. So I whenever I used to work with zebrafish more, the care that we used to do is mainly for the embryos. And the thought process behind that for the project I do was we would breed zebrafish, we would put them in tanks, breeding tanks the night before, and then in the morning, whenever we get in, we would, release this divider that we'd have between the males and females.

00;12;55;27 - 00;13;19;28
Unknown
And that was because the optimal breeding time was, sometime in the morning. And when, we release these, we would, wait for the embryos to be fertilized by the males. And once, we got enough embryos that we wanted, we would then plate them. We have 96 full plates. We'd plate them and we would put drug on them.

00;13;19;28 - 00;13;43;28
Unknown
And we because we were able to get so many embryos from these fish, we were able to test a bunch of different drugs. So that's how, that that's how we took care of them. We would only use them for about a week. So there wasn't much care in feeding them or making sure they were kept fed, because we just wanted to see how they would react to this drug once they were born.

00;13;44;00 - 00;14;11;24
Unknown
Based on your research experience thus far, what is one piece of advice that you would give to fellow undergraduate students or incoming undergraduates, students who are looking to get into, research? I think my favorite piece of advice that I like to give people who are getting into research is not to not be afraid to change what you're doing, because, again, I started in different lab when I was in high school, and I realized that it just wasn't my thing.

00;14;11;26 - 00;14;32;12
Unknown
So it's the most important thing about doing research is to find what you like doing and to just keep on doing that. Because if you're going to keep doing something that you're not passionate about or that you don't like, you're going to be miserable each day that you go in the lab, you're going to start to hate the work that you do, and it's going to translate into the little things that you do within your experiment.

00;14;32;12 - 00;14;55;03
Unknown
Like, you might not want to do something as efficient as possible, or you might not do something as well or like as better as possible. And that's something that you just have to realize. If you don't like it, just move on. And that's okay to start back at square zero. As long as you like something, you're it's going to be worth it in the end, because you'll want to do it every day and want to keep improving at it.

00;14;55;08 - 00;15;31;29
Unknown
What's something you enjoy about research that you never thought you would? Yeah. So coming into, just throughout high school, I was a super quiet kid, and that still translates a bit. Today. I don't talk as much as other people. It's kind of cringe to say, but, I'm just a quiet person in general, and to this day, if I, if I was in my freshman year of high school seeing that I'm doing a podcast right here now, I would be completely surprised at myself because before I just, I'd be like shaking the day off whenever I'd have a presentation.

00;15;32;02 - 00;15;56;17
Unknown
But through research, it's given me the chance to practice those skills and just get better at it and see the enjoyment in presenting and talking with other people and seeing how important these connections and making these connections are with other people. So that's what I really enjoy about research, is just the collaborative aspect of it, and getting to learn new things and meet new people.

00;15;56;19 - 00;16;27;05
Unknown
How are you going to use research as a platform to jump into your career? Life goals and aspirations? Yeah. So in my future, I like my goal as of now is to do an MD PhD degree. So that's research definitely ties into that. So as I was doing research throughout undergrad, it's been good to experience what, my life would be like in the future and what to expect.

00;16;27;07 - 00;16;43;23
Unknown
And also being in research and in the specific subject that I'm in, I've been able to meet a bunch of different people who have taken this pathway as well, and I've been able to ask a bunch of different questions and just get advice as to, if this pathway is right for me or what I should do in this pathway.

00;16;43;23 - 00;17;07;00
Unknown
So that's definitely a good thing about research, is that you'll meet people. You'll meet an every person for every pathway that you could possibly take in the future. It's definitely good to, see what your life would be like ahead of what it is now. For those of you who don't know, Keenan is the creative director for the Oh You Are podcast.

00;17;07;02 - 00;17;32;29
Unknown
How do you pursue those creative interests outside of research? Yeah. So, I'd say my main creative, pursuits, outside of what I do outside of my work is, photography, whenever, any, I guess, whenever anything like happens, I usually have my camera with me, and I like to take portraits or just pictures of what is happening in my life in general.

00;17;32;29 - 00;17;59;02
Unknown
And it's good to, for me to just capture those memories within my life and see that. But also outside of photography, I like using, and doing editing with like Adobe products. So, that's like graphic design and, editing the photos that I took with the camera for photography. Is there anything else that you would like to discuss?

00;17;59;05 - 00;18;25;21
Unknown
Yeah, I would, so a lot of my research experience that I would like to give a shout out to was and due to a program, I was in the junior year summer that I was in, which was called the Mark Strong Scholar Program, which was a, undergraduate research program focused on, cancer research. For this program. It was a combination of doing research and shadowing and just learning about different types of cancer in general.

00;18;25;23 - 00;18;51;20
Unknown
And I thought it was a really great experience for me and for other people to, have and it was directly targeted to those, minority students. And I thought that was just a great opportunity that people at the university can take in general to, just get a jumpstart in research if they're interested in. When do you usually apply out of curiosity, the application opens in January, like mid-January.

00;18;51;24 - 00;19;17;10
Unknown
It closes around, I like to say the end of March or beginning of April, so it's better to get it in early and get those, get those letters of recommendation and get some revisions on your, statement of why you want to do it. We would like to thank canon Andre Flores for being our guest on the On Your Research podcast.

00;19;17;13 - 00;19;46;17
Unknown
Lastly, thanks to The Media Depot for the space to record this episode. This episode and future episodes will be posted on Spotify. Also, check out the Office of Undergraduate Research social media accounts, our Instagram at UK UTR, and our Twitter at UK UTR. Stay tuned for more.

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;26;24
Unknown
Hello and welcome to the OUR Podcast. We are proud to announce the partnership with the University of Kentucky and the office of the Vice President for research. I'm deep, and I'm Diksha. And join us in welcoming Abraham Alhamdanii to the podcast. Hi. Thank you for having me today. Yeah. Thank you for joining us. So tell us a little bit about yourself, Abraham.

00;00;26;27 - 00;00;53;22
Unknown
So I am, you cannot do that. You're going to be a senior next year. I am from Frankfort, Kentucky, and now I am a pre-med student neuroscience at U-K, hoping to go to med school next year. So, yeah. And you're a senior, right? Yes. Yes. So you've been in labs since your freshman year? I have, yes. Did you do research as a high school student?

00;00;53;24 - 00;01;22;04
Unknown
I did not know, but I, when I was in high school, I, I that's when I was actually introduced to research because I had, a lot of peers going to, participating in research, actually, through the program. They through the Gatton Academy program at WKU. That's how I first got introduced to it. I actually applied and I got gotten in, but I decided not to go because I was I'm a very, like, family oriented person.

00;01;22;05 - 00;01;45;18
Unknown
Yeah, it was very hard for me early family and it was more of my decision to just stay in high school. Kind of enjoy my time there before college. But that's kind of when I learned about me. And that's about research, what it could do, how you could participate. And so I actually came into UK already having this interest in research and kind of through the under Office of Undergraduate Research, I got connected with my mentor.

00;01;45;20 - 00;02;05;24
Unknown
I learned how to reach out to them and I actually started participating the spring semester of my freshman year. You started doing research your spring semester. Freshman year? Yes. So how was your introduction into research, even though. Well, it's that you had knowledge of what the field was like. Yes. But you didn't have actual hands on experience, right?

00;02;05;25 - 00;02;33;23
Unknown
Yeah. So how was your transition into jumping into a laboratory? And whose laboratory was it? What who was your mentor and what was that relationship like at the beginning? Yeah. Well, I, I yeah, when I came, I didn't have a hands on experience with research, but I actually took an introductory lab class. I went on it was a biology lab designed to get you introduced into research opportunities with a biology and science department.

00;02;33;23 - 00;02;58;08
Unknown
And I had actually taken that my freshman year. The idea of it was to kind of build up this kind of get students used to laboratory like research, like work. And so at the end of the semester, it was kind of a custom for people to either do a like a structured, second semester, which was called by 1 in 9, or you would actually email API and you would officially join the lab.

00;02;58;08 - 00;03;17;12
Unknown
And that's the route I took. And so I went through neuroscience stuff, and I emailed a lot of them and a lot of the research staff, I emailed all of the email. They actually didn't take me because at the time, this was fall of 2020. So Covid was a really big problem for the university and for, research in general.

00;03;17;12 - 00;03;41;10
Unknown
It was hard to bring new students in. But my mentor, who has and the neuroscience and biology department, doctor Julie Pendergast, is who actually accepted my, my email and actually eventually took me on into her lab. So that's kind of how I got there. And could you describe briefly what your, project with Doctor Pendergast was?

00;03;41;13 - 00;04;14;05
Unknown
So essentially what my research focuses on is the, and our lab, we look at even, we look at it's essentially a combination of circadian rhythm research. So essentially the 24 hour cycles of your body, how those operate and metabolism research specifically focusing on obesity. So what we look at in the lab is how high fat diet intake essentially disrupts the timing at which mice will actually leave their meals or eat their food.

00;04;14;06 - 00;04;32;19
Unknown
So we study lab mice in the lab. And those and the mice are actually supposed to be like, turn off, and they're supposed to eat primarily in night time. But what we've seen in certain turn, my specifically male mice of certain strains, when we feed them high fat diet, they are actually, their eating behavior rhythms become disrupted.

00;04;32;19 - 00;04;59;25
Unknown
They start eating throughout the day and throughout night time at an equal distribution. And essentially there they are. Their eating behavior rhythms become disrupted. And we've seen that. Then this might make them more prone to obesity. So so basically, if you don't sleep according to your like circadian rhythm or like naturally like your tendency is again like your circadian rhythm, like it might mess with your like metabolism.

00;04;59;29 - 00;05;19;27
Unknown
Well, sleep plays a part in that. But what we look at is specifically if you're eating a lot of high fat diet, the idea is possibly in humans that might translate over and affect meal timings in humans. Yeah, we're starting human studies in the lab, though I'm not doing them. But it's definitely something our lab is looking into.

00;05;19;29 - 00;06;01;28
Unknown
And you have a second position, in a different, research area. Right. Could you elaborate more on that? Okay. I'll start from where I was in the Pendergast lab freshman year. I was learning the ropes and getting adjusted to that. But at the same time, I was actually volunteering with, with an organization on campus called Campus Kitchens, which we essentially, we essentially take, food that's about to be thrown, food that's still, edible, but but past the expiration date, we actually take that food, use it to make, meals for people in need, people who are in food insecure in the Lexington and UK communities.

00;06;02;00 - 00;06;23;18
Unknown
And so I was actually doing this volunteering while I was doing research at the time, and I'd been doing this for about eight months, and my supervisor for Campus kitchens actually came up to me and offered me. I would talk about my research a lot, talk about because it's something that's close to my heart. I talk about it, I like mentioning things about it.

00;06;23;18 - 00;06;49;06
Unknown
And so she eventually came up to me and asked, hey, would you be interested in doing research with us? And trying to learn more about our organization and trying to help us implement new interventions for food insecurity? I seemed really interesting to me, so I ended up accepting that position. And so now a lot of my work is, understanding some of the factors contributing to food insecurity.

00;06;49;08 - 00;07;14;10
Unknown
Specifically, this work is with my supervisor for campus kitchens, Kendra Narasaki, who is, a PhD student at UK. But and then my actual P.I. is Doctor Tammy Stevenson and the Department of Human and the Department of Dietetics and Human Nutrition. So, so essentially what I do is learn, look into the factors contributing to food insecurity in our local community.

00;07;14;12 - 00;07;38;06
Unknown
And currently we're working on the project trying to understand how, meal assistance, nutrition education can actually improve, or decrease the risk of becoming food insecure and decrease and improving health overall. So you currently do research in two different areas, and one is more humanities focus and one is more Stem. And like Wet Lab is a focus.

00;07;38;06 - 00;08;06;09
Unknown
And so between the two, how has that helped you grow as a researcher and what different skills have you learned from these two? So definitely I think it was very good for me to get into a second research environment because definitely there challenges that can come from being in research. And I think finding different, different mentors who can help you at different stages of your journey has been very, very good for me.

00;08;06;12 - 00;08;29;16
Unknown
And essentially, I think being in those two different areas has been very good for me because it's kind of gotten me to my end goal is going to medical school and becoming a doctor, but I definitely want to continue research in that career path. And I think participating in those two types of research opportunities have kind of informed what I really want to do.

00;08;29;19 - 00;08;54;16
Unknown
Like if I was only if I was still only doing the, mouse work, I really wouldn't have any understanding of research outside of that. But having experience with research in the community, directly working with people, and what lab animal work research has kind of I kind of under, I've learned that I really like people more than I do mice, honestly.

00;08;54;18 - 00;09;22;04
Unknown
So I, I think working with people is more suited to my person. Not only I like talking to people, I like being social, and I like having a direct impact on the community. And I think my research with the mice and with the repeating rhythm research is going to have an impact on the community, but very, very far down the line, like in 20 years time, if not longer.

00;09;22;08 - 00;09;46;04
Unknown
And I think I get more satisfaction from creating interventions that directly help people in the now. And so I think that's more of the research I want to continue. But at the same time, I like understanding the basic science aspects and reading papers and trying to incorporate that into my work, which is I'm only really doing that at the, Rhythm Lab.

00;09;46;06 - 00;10;28;17
Unknown
And so I hope to incorporate both parts of that into my future as a researcher, based on this interdisciplinary approach that you've taken to research. What's one piece of advice that you would give to, incoming students to take that same approach and find where they want to get into, for research? I would say be open to finding mentors outside of your major or outside of your departments, being open to opportunities that truly like that truly speak to you as an individual, as opposed to finding research opportunities that strictly fulfill, of course, credits or strictly fulfill your department that you're in.

00;10;28;21 - 00;10;53;23
Unknown
I think being open with that is as a very good way of finding research and finding a place that you'll be happy with as, as, Stu, that you mentioned a lot of research that you're incorporated in, but what are some hobbies that you have outside of research? I like to go to the gym a lot. I try to go 5 to 6 days a week, but sometimes you have some off days.

00;10;53;23 - 00;11;15;28
Unknown
You have some off weeks. What else? I am in a choir at UK, actually the Corsairs choir. It's a mixed gender choir. I actually didn't sing in choir before college, but I had friends around me that kind of pushed me to start. And it's been a really fun activity. You know, one hour every few days a week.

00;11;16;01 - 00;11;53;14
Unknown
Just take my mind off of things and just sing. Enjoy my life, enjoy the music, enjoy the art. You mentioned here that you are also involved in, American, the American mock World Health Organization. What has that experience been like? We're actually doing a lot of volunteering at nursing homes. That's the primary thing we do. So every week we go visit, I haven't been doing it much this summer, but we, go visit, nursing home and, specifically nursing home in Lexington every Friday for about three hours or so every week.

00;11;53;16 - 00;12;20;22
Unknown
It's been a, I think it's more of my more fulfilling activities along with research, because it's kind of I get to work directly with people who don't really have someone to be there for them. So what we do is we essentially like we do like basic hygiene, hygienic care. So like brushing teeth, clipping nails. But their favorite activity for us to do is, to paint their nails.

00;12;20;25 - 00;12;45;11
Unknown
That's what we, that's what we have a lot of people do. So every week we go to, surgery, we go to people, people's rooms and just paint their nails, their nails, all that kind of stuff. But how has research impacted your future career and life goals? And, just to add something tangentially to that, your, involvement in organizations like, who.

00;12;45;13 - 00;13;19;26
Unknown
Okay. When I first joined my lab, my first lab with, in the biology department, I, I, I think I was really excited about it, like, super, super excited like about it to the point where probably after a year, I was like, gung ho. I wanted to do an MD track. So for those who don't know, and MD PhD is essentially you do med school for two years and then you pause and do a PhD for four years, and then you finished med school for the last two years.

00;13;19;28 - 00;13;50;11
Unknown
It's usually an eight year track, and primarily you're going to be doing a research after you complete that. And so that's where I thought I wanted to be. I wanted to do both medicine and research, like as primary parts of my career. But that was also during the time when a lot of clinical volunteering was closed off due to Covid, and I was just very new to research, I don't think I don't think looking back at that point, I don't think I had a fully formed opinion.

00;13;50;13 - 00;14;21;09
Unknown
But as I've worked more with the community and realized that. I don't want to work with mice my whole life. I don't want to, I think I think research takes a lot of willpower that I just I don't think, aligns as well with my personality. As I say, working directly with people in a clinic or in the community as a physician.

00;14;21;09 - 00;14;52;26
Unknown
And so I think that's kind of how research changed my goals over time. And the campus kitchen research. But dietetics research has kind of played a role in that and giving more and more exposure into the community, whether it was before I like, joined the research part of our organization or and then as well as like after I, I actually got started working more in depth in that level, I think.

00;14;52;28 - 00;15;19;11
Unknown
But yeah, essentially I switched from wanting to do research my for my career to primarily doing to wanting to just be a physician with research on the side. Yeah, I always say like, I want to research, but research doesn't want me, you know? Yeah, yeah. But I think research is overall useful for everyone's career paths. Yeah, yeah. Just to want to do it my entire life.

00;15;19;13 - 00;15;50;12
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. So, another question, have you presented your research before and where and how has this experience help you, helped you, with your path to medicine. So I think presentation's been really good for my career as a physician, because has kind of helped me kind of present myself, a lot better to people who are coming up and asking about my research, who I need to have a professional conversation with.

00;15;50;15 - 00;16;26;11
Unknown
Learning to present and really be excited about my research is has been really good for helping me becoming excited and be very active in the conversation when it comes to professional goals, interviews, that kind of thing. Or even say, five, 5 to 10 years down the line when I'm a physician talking to patients in the clinic. So I think there are a ton of benefits to presentation along with getting feedback to your work, which can be helpful in the lab as well.

00;16;26;14 - 00;16;49;09
Unknown
Yeah, it's definitely a great experience. And like but like what you were saying when talking to patients, sometimes you have to break down super complicated names or words or like concepts. I feel like research teaches you that because you're like the expert in your field of whatever, and then you have to be like, well, not everyone knows what like a B is or circadian rhythms or things like that.

00;16;49;09 - 00;17;13;15
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. What's one word you would tell an undergraduate who was looking to get into research? I would say mindfulness. I am a big proponent of mindfulness. Just being able to take the punches and kind of get back up from them and the sense of it's only one event in my life out of millions and millions, events that they're going to have in my life.

00;17;13;17 - 00;17;42;01
Unknown
Research blows can blow a lot of punches your way from personal experience and from what I've heard from others. But I think in the search for a research opportunity and actually getting started on that research opportunity, I think being mindful and being open to to the things that come your way is a really get really good skill to have.

00;17;42;03 - 00;18;05;26
Unknown
So you mentioned, you are physically active and try your best to be during the school year. Obviously you have other responsibilities with schoolwork and research and the other organizations you are a part of. How has that finding that balance been like? Well, I wish I could tell you for sure, because I have a master that I think it's always a work in progress, especially as you progress towards your life.

00;18;05;26 - 00;18;34;03
Unknown
Personally, for me, there are periods where I am very active with my exercise. I'm very proactive about it and other times where live gets in the way or volunteering or I'm just flat out exhausted from schoolwork. It kind of gets pushed to the side. But I think what's helped me the most with time management, as I try to figure it out, is prioritize the things I want to do in a certain day or a certain week.

00;18;34;03 - 00;19;05;20
Unknown
Which research do I need to spend more time focusing on? What time am I going to go to the gym? What can I put aside for the week and leave till next week? Because although you ideally want to be productive in every aspect of your life, with the amount of things that personally I'm doing and some students are doing, I think it's farther impossible to be productive in every aspect and do a good job with every activity you're doing, so I think those are the steps that I take personally.

00;19;05;22 - 00;19;30;28
Unknown
Yeah. Great. So what's something that you enjoy about research today that you never thought you would? I've said this so many times, but working with people instead of ones of animals, how about in both perspective and both perspectives. So I learned that I wanted to work with people with, dietetics research, but with, laboratory research, I realized that I really like making graphs.

00;19;30;28 - 00;19;59;03
Unknown
Graphs are really fun to make. It's like seeing your results. Exactly. What are your current responsibilities in your lab as an undergraduate? And, could you mention both? So the research responsibility is are different between both environments for me. So and with the lab work, a lot of it is self-directed. That's my pie style with the dietetics research I work directly with my PhD mentor.

00;19;59;03 - 00;20;24;08
Unknown
And so those are kind of the another way. Those two those two research opportunities differ. So really drastically. Thank you so much for joining us, Abe. And we hope you enjoyed listening. Yeah. Well, thank you for having me. Thanks to The Media Depot for the space to record this episode, this episode and future episode will be posted on Spotify.

00;20;24;11 - 00;20;45;05
Unknown
Also, check out the Office of Undergraduate Research social media accounts, our Instagram @UKYUGR, and our Twitter @UKUGR. Stay tuned for more.

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;23;14
Unknown
Hello, everybody. Welcome to the O.U.R. podcast. I'm your co-host, Deep Patel, along with Diksha Satish. We are proud to announce the partnership with the University of Kentucky and the Office of the Vice President for Research. Today, we are going to talk to Danica Hak. She is a junior majoring in interiors here at the University of Kentucky. She is a driven undergraduate researcher focusing on interior design.

00;00;23;20 - 00;00;43;24
Unknown
And today we will be covering her research story. So welcome, Danica. Thank you for joining us. Hi. Thank you for having me. It's such an honor to be your first guest. Thank you for coming along. What led to your decision to do research as an undergraduate? I'm an interior design major, and I remember being like a freshman in the program.

00;00;43;27 - 00;01;05;15
Unknown
And just like coming into interior design, very narrow-minded. Like, I think when everyone thinks interior design, they think like very HGTV, very residential, and you people think that you're going to graduate doing that. And that was like debunked, like one of the first days of class when I was a freshman, and I was just like blown away.

00;01;05;15 - 00;01;35;28
Unknown
It was like this visual of like this mind map. And it was like all of these like different realms of design. You can go into, like there's like graphic design, there's commercial design, and through commercial design there's like education design, health care design. There's so many spaces that can be designed. And so I left feeling, I love freshman year feeling really hopeful because there are so many different like realms of design you could go into, but also very intimidated because design was now this very big ambiguous thing.

00;01;35;28 - 00;02;01;05
Unknown
And I was really a little scared and quite humbled, and I really wanted to find my niche, and I wanted to find, something more specific to go into. And so, my summer of my sophomore, going into my junior year, my professor recommended that I started doing my own research and conducting my own research to kind of figure out my niche and what I was interested in.

00;02;01;08 - 00;02;20;11
Unknown
And it was really helpful in that I was able to dip my toes into something more specific that I think took me out of a lot of my fears and like fears of burnout and fears of like getting lost in such like a big and ambiguous major. So you mentioned graphics design and a couple of other design areas.

00;02;20;11 - 00;02;45;20
Unknown
What is your research, project like? What area is it in? So it is a form of site specific installation design. I am also a dance minor, and so I really wanted throughout my entire academic career, I have constantly had to advocate myself for being an interior design major dance minor, because I get a lot of weird looks when I tell people I'm interior design and dance because they're always like, what are you going to do?

00;02;45;21 - 00;03;12;07
Unknown
Like dance in the as you decorate? And that makes me irrationally angry because they're so correlated and more correlated than one might think, and that they're both very human centered, very like site specific, body specific. And so with my research, I really wanted to explore the interaction between space and body, which I think is super under like recognized because it's quite a beautiful thing, like ergonomics.

00;03;12;10 - 00;03;31;27
Unknown
You think about like the chair you're sitting and like how your back like naturally like arches and how that chair supports that. You think about like ergonomic, like keyboards and like all the office kind of designs that, like, are formed to your body. And dance is so beautiful in that it's an art form that's like the emotions and like the movement of the body.

00;03;31;29 - 00;03;56;04
Unknown
And so I really wanted to make those correlate. And so through my research, I also just with design, I have found myself to be drawn to really immersive design, really atmospheric design, because I feel like it is very human centered and very experience based in that it really gets to one's like emotions and makes them like feel something like unexplainable.

00;03;56;04 - 00;04;22;06
Unknown
And I want I, I really am a huge advocate for design that is really impactful in that way. And so I started off making like a very immersive design that was interactive. And then the dancer and me really wanted to just move in it. And so my research was very focused on that interaction. You mentioned dancing, right? And making a collaboration between dance and your research.

00;04;22;08 - 00;04;45;09
Unknown
Now, how long have you been dancing? Yeah, I've danced since I was three years old. And so I have an older sister that actually, like she danced. And so of course, like my parents put me into dance after that. And it was just it's so it's always been in me and I am really appreciative for like the training that I've gotten and the support I've gotten from like the department here and my studio back home.

00;04;45;09 - 00;05;04;00
Unknown
I just think it's like such a beautiful art form. And so natural. I'm in a dance history class right now, and we're talking a lot about how, like, dance is one of the first forms of, like, expression, like people were moving and dancing before they, like, figured out, like what music was or like how to speak to one another.

00;05;04;00 - 00;05;30;18
Unknown
And I think it's just so interesting. So you mentioned site specific installation research more specifically into that. What exactly are you studying? Based off of that? Like what is your research into suicide specific? We're really big on site specific choreography in the dance department, and it's just that you're acknowledging this space that you're moving in, which I think is super in line with, like, interiors and what we do as interior designers with site specific work.

00;05;30;25 - 00;05;52;23
Unknown
It's really taking a dance, which is traditionally throughout history, we've seen it in a more traditional proscenium stage, like, you know, like the big opera house, like stages where like, there's the dancer and then there's the audience members. So site specific work really takes it out of that traditional stage and puts it in a more, I guess, like ordinary space where you don't usually see dance.

00;05;52;23 - 00;06;17;21
Unknown
But it further enforces that dance is such a community driven art, and it's all about the community and not so much about the performance factor. And so that's what really drew me to site specific dance and site specific work. Just the accessibility and the inclusivity in the art form that is not as intimidating as if it were perceived on like a very large stage.

00;06;17;24 - 00;06;48;06
Unknown
You had interest in dance and you wanted to do research in design. So how did your P.I. or your principal investigator react when you brought this idea to them? Yeah, so she was actually incredibly supportive. My, faculty mentor is Ingrid Schmidt. She's a faculty member in the School of Interiors, and she had been my professor freshman year, and I had had her every semester up until then, just with like, studios and electives I took that were led by her.

00;06;48;07 - 00;07;09;07
Unknown
She is an installation designer. She does a lot of installation with her practice OBS studio with had to do her first. I was just incredibly inspired by them freshman year coming into this major, like totally blind. Like I didn't know what I was going to expect other than like HGTV. And they were like part of the reason, like, just like such a huge inspiration to me.

00;07;09;07 - 00;07;29;13
Unknown
Like they were doing what I wanted to do, like making a motive, immersive interactive design successfully. And so I was really drawn to her. I like critiques, I like being told what I'm doing wrong. And Ingrid is really wonderful in being able to push the work in a progressive way that pushes me as a designer and a person.

00;07;29;13 - 00;07;52;04
Unknown
And so she is the one who actually encouraged me to apply to the grant over the summer and conduct my own research. I had her in a studio where I had proposed this mock up exhibit. I think we were doing an interior installation in the UK Art gallery. That was the studio. I had an idea for the installation and she came to me and was like, okay, so this summer research thing, what were you thinking?

00;07;52;04 - 00;08;08;07
Unknown
And I was like, I really want to scale that up. And I really want to like just move in it. And she was like, I was thinking the exact same thing. And so it started as more interior based. But then when I actually scaled it up and made it, I was like, this would be such a sick like scenic set design to just like dance in.

00;08;08;07 - 00;08;32;19
Unknown
And she was like, yeah, like do it like she's very like easygoing and that like, if you just want to do it, then just do it. Like, what's stopping you? And so she's incredibly encouraging, incredibly talented and amazing and supportive. And I'm very grateful for I could not do it without her. That's so great. It's definitely so important to have a super supportive mentor and going off of your interest in dance and into your design and the intersection of that.

00;08;32;21 - 00;08;52;21
Unknown
I know you did some like design and production for a stage show with the college of Fine Arts. How was that experience and how were you able to use your previous education and research in that area? So interior design, we do take some, like lighting courses, but obviously that's more for the interior application, less of the performative application.

00;08;52;28 - 00;09;11;17
Unknown
So I really wanted to reach out to the College of Fine Arts and get some experience in just like stage and scenic elements, because that's a little bit more I was interested in and the staging and framing of design elements in that way. And so I did not have room in my schedules to take a lighting designer scenic design class.

00;09;11;17 - 00;09;42;22
Unknown
And so the next thing that they recommended to me was to work on the mainstage shows. So I was an assistant lighting designer under Heather Brown, the lighting design professor at the university, and I was an assistant skin designer under interiors student Caitlin Herndon, actually. And so I got a lot of experience, just like working upscale and mainstage and working with like, lots of people and bodies of people opposed to like what I did in my research where I was just me and very like individualized.

00;09;42;22 - 00;10;05;14
Unknown
I got a lot of experience, like working collaboratively as a team, because it wasn't just what I wanted. The lighting to look and what I wanted the set to look like. It's what the director's vision, how the actors felt and if they felt safe or if they liked it as well. Because actors can take a lot of inspiration from, like the lighting and scene elements, because that's just kind of the cherry on top to the production.

00;10;05;14 - 00;10;30;13
Unknown
And I got a lot of wonderful experience with Heather Brown and Caitlin and Zach, the scenic encourager of the college. And just like working upscale, working with lots of people and actually with my dance concert, the department puts on a daily concert every year. And so usually I participate and dance in it. But they came to me this semester and really wanted me to design light for it.

00;10;30;13 - 00;10;50;10
Unknown
And so that was really awesome. I got to kind of like have these two hats of like being the lighting designer, not just assistant lighting designer, but like designing the light and also like dancing in a piece. And so that was really wonderful. And really surreal that I was able to get that opportunity. And it was just it was just great.

00;10;50;10 - 00;11;09;17
Unknown
It was such a wonderful, like light is so great and that it's so atmospheric and kind of like that feeling I was talking about earlier, where it's like emotions that are kind of unexplainable and like you can't really put into words. Light is very similar in that, like, you can't really like touch it or like it's not like tangible, but like it helps you see and you can't see without it.

00;11;09;17 - 00;11;30;24
Unknown
And it the little lighting of like a space is like everything. Like if the lighting is bad, them like everything is off. So I think, yeah, I'm a very big light person. So if some student wanted to go down this path, this interdisciplinary path that you have gone down, what would they expect? How could they step their foot in the door?

00;11;30;24 - 00;12;07;21
Unknown
What would you recommend? Yeah, I think just being, like, incredibly communicative about what you want to do. And there are faculty and staff that will support you. I'm incredibly grateful for the support I've gotten from both the College of Design and the College of Fine Arts. Even in my classes, I was just talking to my advisors earlier this morning about a scheduling error and being able to graduate on time with my interior design major, my dance minor, because there are some conflicts with those classes, and they are all being so incredibly supportive and helpful and like trying to make that happen.

00;12;07;24 - 00;12;36;16
Unknown
I would completely encourage interdisciplinary. It's really hard. In college, especially like you have these like huge lecture halls and like it's really easy to feel like you're just another name or just another like student. But interdisciplinary really helps you, like, stand out, not just like to your professors and your peers, but like it helps give you that confidence that you are a little bit different and things are a lot more interconnected than one might think.

00;12;36;16 - 00;13;05;23
Unknown
Everything's connected like, it's so crazy. I certainly don't regret going the interdisciplinary route. And the more I'm in my classes and the more I'm learning, professors are actually encouraging more interdisciplinary focuses just because it makes you more well-rounded as a person and an individual and a designer especially, I think it's incredibly important, specifically as a designer, to be super well-rounded and just like other people's opinions and other people's like views and perspectives and stories.

00;13;05;23 - 00;13;31;27
Unknown
Because like, as a designer, you are that voice for other people and you are designing for other people, not really yourself. Research has been incredibly helpful in that I've been able to do a lot of the work through research, and senior year is going to be a lot easier now that I've gotten like the next kind of like ironed out through research and like spending these summers, like really experimenting.

00;13;31;29 - 00;13;51;27
Unknown
Senior year is going to be like a breeze with my thesis and incorporating kind of just like accessibility, dance, inclusivity, design and all the themes I was kind of discussing earlier, you mentioned that with the College of Fine Arts, you were a lighting designer in other roles. You mentioned that you were doing the dancing within your research.

00;13;51;27 - 00;14;22;05
Unknown
How do you typically balance between these two roles? Yeah, so there are a lot of factors and layers into what I'm interested in specifically. And design is such like a nuanced, specific thing that sometimes it can get a little bit overwhelming trying to balance and kind of like figure out all these like things. But I think it really helps to just kind of like my student professor always says, begin with the end in mind and always just like, take it in bite sized pieces.

00;14;22;05 - 00;14;40;16
Unknown
So like, I've danced all my life, so maybe putting dance on the backburner a little bit, focusing more on the design aspect. Okay, like my design solidified now. Now let me like get an expertise in lighting. And it's really just this ongoing list in my brain of things I'm interested in and things that I think can help influence my research and my personal like interests.

00;14;40;16 - 00;15;05;11
Unknown
And then just whenever the opportunity arises, I just take it, I always learn so much from everything. So some of your current responsibilities recently included you danced with a team for the current research advisory group, and one of the people on that group is Eli Capelouto, the president of UK. How was that experience? And you mentioned that research helps you stand out.

00;15;05;11 - 00;15;30;22
Unknown
How did research help you get that experience? That entire like performance was just so incredibly surreal. And one way that I started out was that everyone else presenting research that day, they were all like, Professor adults with like degrees. And so I felt the biggest amount of imposter syndrome. I was like, there must be a mistake. Like they probably thought I was like somebody else, like, are you sure?

00;15;30;22 - 00;15;58;12
Unknown
Like, this is for real? And my advisor and director of research for the college, Lindsey Fey, she was like, no, like, we wanted you because you're a student. And what's better than like, student work? And so that was incredibly surreal. And I remember me, my mentor Ingrid, and the director for research at the college Design, Lindsey, we sat down and talked a lot about how we were going to take what I did over the summer and apply it to this performance.

00;15;58;12 - 00;16;22;21
Unknown
This was the first time I had ever, like, presented my research. I know with more like typical Stem researches like you presented at conferences and stuff. So this was the first time I had ever like a live performance or anything of what I did over the summer, what I had over the summer. There was a lot of like specificity in it because as I was talking earlier about like site specific, the one can decide specificity is that it's really hard to like copy and paste that to a different location.

00;16;22;21 - 00;16;45;29
Unknown
I struggled a lot with trying to find ways to translate what I did over the summer into this new performance space. I was in the basement of Bowman Hall, if you all know where that is. I was down there and it's just very experimental down there. I was like hanging things from like, lighting, fixtures. And there were lots of, like, heavy, like acrylic pieces and it's a basement, so it's like incredibly dark.

00;16;45;29 - 00;17;12;20
Unknown
And the lights were very impactful. And so taking that and putting it in one of the student, the location for the Curie Rag presentation was one of the ballrooms in the student center. So incredibly different, very high ceilings, very controlled lighting conditions, and staged like a stage, like a literal stage. It's not like a basement. And so we talked a lot about finding ways to translate that.

00;17;12;20 - 00;17;34;00
Unknown
And I think that was one of the biggest struggles in that performance. But I overcame it obviously, because it was very it was very wonderful to be able to present that and just like making it very projection based and taking kind of like images and videos of what I did over the summer and projecting it onto the stage so that it was kind of like not only behind me, but also like on my body.

00;17;34;00 - 00;17;57;26
Unknown
So it kind of like gave that very immersive feel. And they also had like some colored lights and stuff, on the stage and so very makeshift and trying to like make that experience in a similar way for the stage. But I think it was successful and, super rewarding. Now, we would like to know how this is influenced your future direction that you would like to take.

00;17;58;02 - 00;18;39;06
Unknown
Yeah. So I guess just more short term goal. I know for interiors I have to do a capstone project. And so research is going to be really helpful in that since it was so self-guided and dependently up started, I've kind of already started the research on what I want to do for my capstone in thesis and the direction I want to go senior year, because I feel like senior year is very individual, because it's all about finding your niche and finding what you're interested in, passionate about, and I guess like for after graduation, I'm still this is just reaffirmed even more my passion for like empathetic and like emotional and impactful design.

00;18;39;08 - 00;19;00;21
Unknown
No matter like what kind of realm of design I go into. Obviously, I'm more interested in like installation design, but if I go more residential or more commercial, just everyday design that I do to be just as intentional and well thought out as everything I've learned through my research. So I would just like to say I immensely enjoyed hearing about your research.

00;19;00;24 - 00;19;22;09
Unknown
We know you personally outside of this, but I did not know the specifics of what you do, and I can hear the love you have for it. And I really enjoyed hearing about it. Thank you. We would like to thank Danica for being our first guest on the podcast—special thanks to the Office of Undergraduate Research for sponsoring this.

00;19;22;12 - 00;19;47;03
Unknown
Lastly, thanks to The Media Depot for the space to record this episode. This episode and future episodes will be posted on Spotify. Also, check out the Office of Undergraduate Research social media accounts, our Instagram @UKYUGR, and our Twitter @UKUGR. Stay tuned for more! We love research!

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;26;19
Unknown
[Diksha] Hello and welcome to the OUR Podcast. We are proud to announce the partnership with the University of Kentucky and the Office of the Vice President for Research. Today we are going to be talking to Princess Agbozo. She is a senior majoring in public health here at the University of Kentucky. She is a driven undergraduate researcher focusing on cervical cancer screening.

00;00;26;19 - 00;00;49;27
Unknown
And today we will be covering her research story.    [Deep] Princess, so first question for you. What led to your decision to get involved and conduct research here at the University of Kentucky?    [Princess] There's only one word I can use to describe it, which is curiosity. I mean, I came into college not knowing fully or understanding fully what research was like when I heard the word research.

00;00;49;27 - 00;01;14;17
Unknown
All I thought of was like scientists in labs looked at mouses and knives and just, like, experimenting on them. And I was like. And at that time, too, I was a pre-med student. And so, you know, all the recs like Dr.. Research service that allowed I was like, okay, bad. Let me just get into research. But I knew at that time I didn't want to be in a lab, like studying mouses and all of that.

00;01;14;18 - 00;01;33;05
Unknown
So I was like, you know what? I'm just curious. Let me see what research really is about. And then I started talking to people in my college. Once I, got into the College of Public Health and then they told me that, like, research doesn't only have to be, like in the lab, like, you can do field research, you can do research, with people and things like that.

00;01;33;05 - 00;01;54;11
Unknown
And I was like, okay, that's cool. I think I like that better than being in the lab, you know? So that's kind of what motivated me to go into research.    [Diksha] Did starting public health research change your career outlook?    [Princess] Oh, absolutely. I think it was a big deciding factor as to what I wanted to do after my undergrad, after, like learning about public health research.

00;01;54;11 - 00;02;21;19
Unknown
I was like, I think I want to do this. Like I enjoyed interacting with people, learning about the community through research, understanding how people work, their behaviors, why you do things, why they don't. And it's very interesting, like talking to people and hearing their stories because like, you have the numbers with like, quantitative research, you know, you can find the p values, the chi square test and things like that, but like actually talking to people and like seeing the stories behind these numbers is insane.

00;02;21;19 - 00;02;48;02
Unknown
So insane in a good way. So, like, I think I really like this and I wouldn't mind doing this as a career.    [Diksha] So you get to talk to, the people you are researching or serving.    [Princess] Yes, right now I'm doing cervical cancer screening as my main like research topic, but, previously to that, I was working with, black mothers and my, my research topic was on their childbearing experiences as black mothers in Lexington.

00;02;48;05 - 00;03;16;02
Unknown
So I got to talk to these mothers and interview them and like, hear their stories about, like, their childbearing experiences and how that affected, like, their life now with your babies. And just like how the overall experience was, did they feel like cared for? Did they feel like they were listened to and just like hearing these stories and these mothers just like tell about the experiences in the healthcare industry, it just changed everything for me because I'm like, there's so many layers to it.

00;03;16;02 - 00;03;32;05
Unknown
You you can have all these numbers and you can have all this data and say that you want to help people. But when you once you sit down and actually listen to these stories, you're like, you know, there's so much more we can do in the healthcare industry to make sure that people are living the life that, you know, it's good for them.

00;03;32;05 - 00;03;58;04
Unknown
That's healthy.    [Deep] So do you go talk to these women in person or over the phone? So it was mostly over zoom, for convenience and just like some of them were mothers, so either they were pregnant at that point in time or like, had really busy schedules with, like, their babies and things like that. Conveniently, I would have liked to talk to them in person, but for the most part it was over zoom.    [Diksha] And were there some stipulations

00;03;58;06 - 00;04;19;26
Unknown
With the IAB because of that, because I know, you know, they're really focused on protecting the participants privacy.    [Princess] Yes, yes. Oh, there very much was. So I had to prove or show them how I was going to keep their information as private as possible while conducting these interviews on zoom. So if, I mean, if I go into detail, we could be here all day.

00;04;19;28 - 00;04;38;25
Unknown
But it wasn't as hard because I wasn't doing it by myself. I had like my research mentors and other graduate assistants helping me, so it wasn't as, like, tedious because I was like, oh, I'm not doing this by myself. If I had any questions, I had people who could help me out.    [Deep] You mentioned your research mentor. Who is your research mentor?

00;04;38;26 - 00;05;00;10
Unknown
Currently for the research I'm doing is Doctor Adebola Adegboyega. She works for the College of Nursing, and she focuses on cervical cancer screening, HPV testings and things like that. For women. So that's her concentration.     [Deep] And how did you get to collaborate with her?    [Princess] So I am part, for this summer, I'm part of the MARKEY Strong Scholars program.

00;05;00;11 - 00;05;29;24
Unknown
So that's from the MARKEY Cancer Center. And basically it's a program that takes, minorities and then, helps them do research in the field of cancer. So then I was paired with her for the research because I was interested in risk factors behind, cancer. And just like, how people can protect themselves and how they can live healthy lifestyles to, to avoid you know, getting cancer.

00;05;29;26 - 00;05;55;16
Unknown
And that's how I got connected with her because she's doing prevention or, like, preventative methods, and things to prevent, like, those risk factors and all of that. So then that's how we ended up getting connected. Yeah.    [Diksha] You've mentioned you have worked in two different labs. How have those experiences differed between the two and what has the transition been like between the two?

00;05;55;18 - 00;06;20;18
Unknown
[Princess] The first lab that I was in, or the first year that I did conduct was under another program called Spark, which is students participate as research ambassadors in Kentucky, and that's under, the center for Health Transformation. But basically they do health equity research. So their program was actually very helpful because they taught us research from the very beginning.

00;06;20;18 - 00;06;47;16
Unknown
So understanding what your research question is IRB and how to go about that, connecting with the faculty member with community, members, just the whole process behind the research. So that was actually a very good foundation to start out from. And then that helped catapult me to researching the MARKEY Cancer Center, because I had that foundation of research with the SPARK program.

00;06;47;18 - 00;07;14;03
Unknown
And so the transition wasn't as hard because I was like, okay, I have a good understanding of what this is. It was more or less like different topics because I was initially like doing health equity with like the women and childbearing experiences, and then I'm doing cervical cancer screening and prevention and all of that. But in terms of like understanding the research processes and what to do, the transition wasn't as hard because I had gained that foundation.

00;07;14;05 - 00;07;42;01
Unknown
I think it was just very interesting seeing how research can be completely different with two different topics like you can understand, okay, I need to go out and recruit and all of that. But like you're dealing with completely different topics, completely different understandings of like, what's revolving around the problem. So that was that was definitely interesting to realize, but I don't think the transition was as bad.

00;07;42;01 - 00;08;25;29
Unknown
Yeah.    [Deep] Princess, you mentioned a very extensive research portfolio. And throughout all of your research, what is one piece of advice that you would give an incoming student or any other undergraduate that was looking to get into research?    [Princess] I would say regardless of where you are at in terms of research, whether you know nothing about research, you've heard about it or you've been multiple research projects, I think it is always helpful to go in with an open mind and, to ask questions like, if you don't know where to start from, come to the, Office of Undergraduate Research.

00;08;25;29 - 00;09;02;13
Unknown
Ask questions.    [Diksha] What are your specific responsibilities in research as an undergraduate currently?    [Princess] Currently with the research project that I'm in, I'm currently doing some data cleaning, which is just like taking out the personal information from, the data that we've collected from people just to protect their privacy. And then I'm, Transcript. Coding. Finding out themes and subthemes from the interview answers that we've got in order to get, the data that we're looking for, the answers and things like that.

00;09;02;13 - 00;09;28;08
Unknown
So that's kind of my responsibility. And then I have to make a whole poster research poster on my findings. So currently my research topic is on, fear as a barrier to cervical cancer screening amongst black women. So, my faculty mentor has already the interviews with this women. So I'm more or less just going through that data and seeing what their responses are.

00;09;28;08 - 00;09;45;01
Unknown
And if I can find any correlation between their answers and the answer that I'm looking for to my research question. So that's basically what I'm focusing on. And then at the end, since I'm with the MARKEY Strong Scholars program, we have a we have a poster presentation at the end of the program to just show what we've been working on.

00;09;45;01 - 00;10;10;16
Unknown
So I've just been doing that so far.    [Deep] What opportunities have you gotten yourself into for presenting your research?    [Princess] I've got to present on a couple of conferences, for the most part here at UK, I got to present at the unite Unite conference. We had also had, College of Public Health, like, poster, poster, presentation, day type thing.

00;10;10;19 - 00;10;42;18
Unknown
And then I also got to present at the CT, conference here on campus. And then I was actually got the opportunity to participate in some poster competitions. And I won a couple shout out to spark for helping me with that. But yeah, it's been fun. Being able to just present my research to people and being in a community of scholars, they're just very eager to hear what you have to say.

00;10;42;18 - 00;11;06;29
Unknown
And just, like, see what data you've come up with and how you're answering your research question. And also from that, I've been able to learn how to present public speaking, which is very important because you, you know, all the information because you did the research. But when it's time to deliver that information to people, and I felt like freezing up, like, like, you know, the information.

00;11;06;29 - 00;11;24;11
Unknown
So these, different conferences have been able to help me, like, build up my confidence and, like, public speaking skills and just, like, be able to be confident in what I'm talking about and just present that to people because they don't know what they don't know. So if you do make a mistake, they don't know that you made a mistake.

00;11;24;18 - 00;11;55;25
Unknown
Just keep going. Just keep going. But yeah.    [Deep] What’s something that you do on a regular basis in research that you never thought you would enjoy or never expected, but you enjoy it? [Princess] I would definitely say reading literature or like reading papers on the topic that I'm researching. I was a very avid reader in high school. And I got to college and I was like, whoa, there's a lot of reading.

00;11;55;27 - 00;12;12;08
Unknown
And I'm also a very slow reader, so it takes me forever to, like, finish a book or like, finish something. But I did not think I was going to enjoy reading like actual scholarly papers that I as much as I thought I do. Because like you read and you, you find out so much, you're like, oh my goodness.

00;12;12;08 - 00;12;30;21
Unknown
Like they actually did this. Like they spoke to 500 women and they found like it's so interesting and intriguing what you get from like reading literature and like all these scholarly papers of like what things, what the things that people have like, discovered. So I did not think I was going to enjoy reading as much as I did.

00;12;30;23 - 00;12;54;06
Unknown
[Diksha] Outside of research, what activities or organizations are you involved in on campus? [Princess] I'm actually involved in with the Activities Board, definitely one of my favorite orgs on campus since I got here. So, we put on events basically for students, just to get to know each other on campus, connect with the campus community and each other.

00;12;54;08 - 00;13;15;04
Unknown
Our events are aimed to be enriching and educational. So we have a range of things, from concerts like cultural festivals to stuff a plush with which is very popular among college students. I don't know why people love stuffing teddy bears, but you know what? They enjoy it. So we love putting it on for them. So I'm, involved with that.

00;13;15;04 - 00;13;35;21
Unknown
And then, I'm also a ambassador for the College of Public Health. So I talk to, like, freshman and other incoming students about the possibilities of being a public health major, what that looks like, if they have any questions, and just being honest and raw about my college experience, because I didn't come in as a public health major, I came in as a bio major and then switched.

00;13;35;21 - 00;13;59;00
Unknown
So just being honest and raw with them about that experience has been very fulfilling. [Diksha] Based on what you mentioned, it seems like you have taken it into disciplinary approach to your involvement on campus. What has that looked like, juggling all your responsibilities while prioritizing research? I think going into it, I knew I definitely one or coming into college, actually, let me start from the get go.

00;13;59;08 - 00;14;21;18
Unknown
I knew that I wanted to try as many things that I possibly could that would elevate me as a college student and career wise as a whole. So I definitely made it a priority to make sure that I was doing both co-curricular things and extra curricular things, things that I was interested in, that would also help me career wise.

00;14;21;20 - 00;14;41;02
Unknown
I decided to pursue things that I knew that I was interested in. So in terms of my extracurriculars, I'm doing SAB I'm an ambassador for my college. These are the things that I'm interested in and I know that I want to do so. I'm never demotivated to not go to a meeting or just not go work, as an ambassador.

00;14;41;02 - 00;15;05;06
Unknown
And then with the research to I'm interested in the topics that I'm doing. So it never feels like I'm working. It genuinely feels like I'm truly just like I'm working, but I'm also enjoying myself doing that. And I think being able to also communicate with both, my faculty members and staff and just letting them know, like, hey, these are the different responsibilities I have going on.

00;15;05;09 - 00;15;24;20
Unknown
I will be here to, like, fulfill the responsibilities, and I'm supposed to do, but I just want to you and just, like, let them know, and then inform them. And they work with me, with my schedule, with classes as well, because that's very important. And obviously that is the forefront of everything. But, just communicating that to them and then, their staff and faculty are so, so, so helpful.

00;15;24;20 - 00;15;48;18
Unknown
They just work with me on my schedule. So usually I do have days that are packed because all my classes research and then work. But in the end, I know that it's worth it. And I know that I'm getting what I want from that. [Deep] How have you used your research experience as well as your extracurricular experiences as a stepping stone, into your career goals and life aspiration?

00;15;48;21 - 00;16;13;19
Unknown
[Princess] Being a public health major, my goal is to work in global health. I'm interested in like health equity, health disparities, and then doing working in that field to be able to, like, increase the quality of life for people. And then provide quality access to health care for people. So I didn't realize how public health ties in with everything, because you are dealing with people and you're dealing with the community.

00;16;13;22 - 00;16;41;29
Unknown
So in my extracurricular activities, maybe I'm not doing something related to, health, but in the end, I'm talking to people. I'm interacting with people. I'm observing their lifestyles, their behaviors, how they fulfill tasks, how they interact with each other, how they interact with me. And I take that all in and process all of that. And that usually helps me with the other thing that I have to do in my research, because then I have to interview people.

00;16;41;29 - 00;17;22;08
Unknown
I have to talk to them. So being around so many people at the time have helped me kind of understand how to best interact with people, how to communicate with people, how to be observed, observant and like what behaviors, and see how that relates to how people act in real life. So it's just like it just all connects somehow, because in the end, it is about people like it's about the community that I'm in, the community that I'm not in, just observing from an outside point or an outside perspective and then seeing how I can relate that with, like my career go like in this of, in this environment, I'm in a college interacting with

00;17;22;08 - 00;17;48;08
Unknown
people who are coming to, who are deciding and they want to come to school as an ambassador, for example. There's a lot of stress. There's a lot of thinking that goes into that. How can I make sure that I'm giving them the right information for them to make that decision? It's not related to health, but it is still interaction with people like their how the decision that they have also affects their mental health.

00;17;48;08 - 00;18;08;27
Unknown
And like for example, that's just an example. And just like what they decide to do in the future. So just like finding all those connections and seeing how I can relate, each something to each other, even though it's not necessarily as specific, it's still all related. And like all connect that together. [Diksha] Yeah, it's very interdisciplinary. The way you approach your undergraduate career.

00;18;08;29 - 00;18;37;00
Unknown
Speaking of being an undergraduate, how did you choose the University of Kentucky? [Princess] Oh, that's a long story. Okay. I will give you the very condensed version. I'm originally from Ghana. I'm an international student, so I lived in Ghana and moved to Qatar, did my high school education, and usually in Qatar, the trend is not to stay for college like people go outside to get a college education.

00;18;37;00 - 00;19;00;03
Unknown
And I was looking for an institution that was welcoming to international students, and I found UK through a YouTube video. Actually, I think it was a YouTube video of like the blue court out there. I don't know if anybody knows. I'm talking about the Blue Court in the Grand Avenue. And I was like, why is a court blue and not orange like of brown like it normally is, whatever the color is.

00;19;00;03 - 00;19;19;09
Unknown
And I was curious and I just have done it and the rest is history. I found out about the course is the program and UK is very welcoming to international students. There's a lot of international students here, and just like they're very eager to provide us with the resources and, they prove it proved to be true, especially during Covid when, us international students couldn't come on campus.

00;19;19;09 - 00;19;42;12
Unknown
They made sure that, like, we were still able to register for classes, have classes online, talk to each other, talk to people. So just like seeing that confirmed to me that I had made the right decision coming to UK finances. Obviously, I also, it be a contributing factor, but overall, just like how they treat us and how welcoming they are to us, and just like providing us the resources to know that we're going to succeed in this environment.

00;19;42;14 - 00;20;05;21
Unknown
And it is a big difference, like education from where you are at at home compared to the United States. So those were one of the big factors why I chose the UK. [Diksha] So you have then been in the education system of three different countries and what has what is the differences or what is the. [Princess] That's a that's a great question.

00;20;05;23 - 00;20;39;11
Unknown
So in Ghana and Qatar it was heavily I was heavily, educated by the British curriculum. So I did like g I GCSEs, a levels, those who know will know. But coming into the US, it was a very big transition for me because the British have their own way of speaking English in the U.S has your own way of speaking English, including grammar, including pronunciation, including punctuation, how you punctuate things and stuff like that.

00;20;39;11 - 00;21;03;10
Unknown
So transitioning to being a public health major. It was also a big transition because we write a lot of research papers and so as a freshman, I needed to start learning how to punctuate grammar, like spelling in the American curriculum as compared to like the one that I was, I grew up in, in high school and, in primary school.

00;21;03;15 - 00;21;23;21
Unknown
So that took a lot of help from like the writing center here at UK, because I would get a lot of like points taking off, not because of the content, because I knew the content, but because of how I worded things. I wrote my paragraphs, I punctuated and grammar. And it took it took a minute, I would say maybe senior years or more.

00;21;23;21 - 00;21;46;09
Unknown
Here was when I started to get the hang of things. In terms of like the American curriculum, it just like, writing my research papers in a way that's like, makes sense. One advice I would definitely say is to international students would be utilizing, the resources here at UK and not that's not only just with classes, but like if you're interested in doing research as well.

00;21;46;09 - 00;22;11;21
Unknown
There's a lot of writing, a lot of literature involved with research. So if English is a, a struggle point, which is common for international students, just like using the resources here that are available for us, which for me was the writing center, in the study as well. They were actually very helpful. And we had two toward our freshman year, which is like a, required class for most people.

00;22;11;21 - 00;22;33;03
Unknown
So that also helped because I was talking to my professor and she would like, guide me on like the right terms to use, the right spelling, the right punctuation and things like that. But the writing center was, I think, one big resource because they will sit with you and actually help you. And, explain the rules to you, just being with somebody who's, like, willing to stay with you and guide you and just help you has been very helpful.

00;22;33;03 - 00;22;58;03
Unknown
So we have the writing center, we have the study, even the Media Depot, like all of these resources are very helpful. So just utilizing all of that to help you get your English and asking your professors. Once I explained to my professor that I was an international student, they very much understood, like it didn't mean they did not take points off because they thought it, but they were very understanding, like, okay, I get that you're not like you're from a different organizational system.

00;22;58;03 - 00;23;29;17
Unknown
So I'm going to help you and guide you. And they would give me like, guidelines on like American ways of writing and things like that. So that was very helpful to [Diksha] thanks to The Media Depot for the space to record this episode. This episode and future episodes will be posted on Spotify. Also, check out the Office of Undergraduate Research social media accounts, our Instagram @UKUGR, and our Twitter @UKUGR.

00;23;29;19 - 00;23;38;10
Unknown
Stay tuned for more.