My education has been a phenomenal one that has exposed me to many kinds of research! I found my passion for research through the Perry Honors College Research Apprenticeship. Through this apprenticeship, I was able to work one on one with Dr. Serina Newmann who is the Dean of Behavioral Psychiatry at Eastern Virginia Medical School. With a team comprised of Dr. Newmann, a resident student and myself. In the span of one semester we developed and analyzed an experiment on Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) therapy. At the end of the semester, I had the pleasure of presenting my work to a public audience and to my peers who also contributed to research projects.
Immediately following this presentation, I knew I wanted to pursue research on the brain. I took Human Cognition the following semester, and created my own supplemental curriculum. I participated in Dr. Ivan Ash’s Creativity and Human Cognition Lab to gain experience in an established lab close to my interests. I learned how to code for Think Aloud Protocol, and was given the opportunity to run a few studies for the Graduate Assistant in the lab.
My interests grew in Human Cognition and my career path became clear. I wanted to continue to study along this path. I applied to the Psychology Departmental Honors Program and got accepted! I registered for a Supervised Research course and eagerly worked with Dr. Ash. After gaining a better understanding of exactly what the research in the lab looked like, I was presented the opportunity to show my research to the Board of Visitors and University President. Below is the article written that was published on the University homepage!
With the help and encouragement from my mentors in Perry Honors College and Dr. Ash, I continued to apply for the Undergraduate Research and Creativity Grant. Through the summer and following fall, I created an entire program on EPrime3 software from only the user manual. The program was created to track eye-movements while participants in the research study solved insight problems.
The fall semester I continued to work on my program and create a testable program. I signed up for the Departmental Honors course to work on my thesis proposal, and earned a second Research and Creativity Grant. At the end of the semester, I provided a finished Honors Thesis Proposal and submission for the Internal Review Board (IRB) to approve my study.
In the spring, we finalized the program and began running the lab researchers until we received IRB approval. The Undergraduate Research Symposium was in February, and I was invited to participate! My study was accepted and I presented my research alongside almost 100 other projects. Unlike many others, my project was presented as an independent experiment and did not have Graduate support. My presentation and research earned second place overall, and was right behind a student’s work on a Graduate thesis. Below is a video of the research I presented on!
To the left is a photo of my presentation with my mentor Dr. Ivan Ash! We worked long and hard for this project and the reward to helping others see the potential in our work was exhilarating.
Immediately following the Undergraduate Research Symposium, the Old Dominion University news wrote an article about the event and top three award recipients. Below are excerpts from the article that appeared on the home page of the ODU website.
With submission of the study into the campus research system, everyone in the lab went on to spring break 2020. Due to COVID-19, the research has been suspended and we eagerly await to see the results of our study. I look forward to the results of our experiment I have been working on for so long, and hope to add publications to this page of research endeavors!!