Day #2 Indiana University

Posted on December 17, 2021 by diazoma

Day 2:

I woke up after an amazing nights sleep and my phone was on mute so I was running late to our first meeting to Luddy Hall. I got myself together pretty quickly and thankfully was organized the night before, so easily picked up my bags and met the REU group in the lobby of the Biddle Hotel. We walked up hill on North Woodlawn Avenue, passing the tennis courts and a couple of sorority houses. We entered the Luddy Hall building and immediately noticed This beautiful art piece on the top floor pictured below.

” Phi Gamma Delta” founded in 1871

The Beta Chapter. “Kappa Alpha Theta”

Flag: Stop Sexual Harassment in front of the Kappa Alpha Theta house.

“Amatria”. Almatria

We began in room 1006, where we had breakfast served from Bloomington Bagel , as we worked on researching different papers on why, when, how , and benefits to getting involved with an REU. We worked on outlining for a paper we will write as a group for the ACM magazine to possibly publish. As we worked together we put thought into how we can help future REU students find research programs and the benefits of this amazing experience. At 12:30 pm we had lunch served in the room and took a break. We had Hive deliver Sandwiches, I had for the first time a Bahnmi sandwich, It was pretty good. We worked in a focus room that looks like an Icecube floating in the hall. The architect did an amazing job.

Luddy Hall Building .

Day #1- Indiana University

Posted on December 16, 2021 by diazoma

My visit to Indiana began at 4:30am woke up in Stephens City Va, then traveled to Dulles International Airport early because I had to be dropped off earlier so my fiance can get back to work at 8am. I took Delta airliner to Detroit, Michigan with a layover for 1 hour then back on the same plane to Indianapolis. Landed at Indianapolis Airport at 1:47pm. Got a little lost in the airport as to where to find the shuttle service to the Biddle Hotel at Indiana University. I wandered around the airport and decided to go into FAO Swartz where I saw the cutest teddy bear called a GUND, So adorable. Then I made my way down to the transportation area where I saw Ubers, Taxis then, surprise “Shuttles”. I went through the building and saw on the door the areas where the shuttles were headed. It said Zone 1 was going to IU Bloomington so I made my way over to the bus. It was a very large travel bus and the driver asked my name and said yes, Ms. Diaz, you’re on my bus. I was so relieved. As I made my way onto the bus I see Forum another REU Research Assistant and realized I was safe and headed in the right direction. The bus ride was about an hour ride because of the multiple drop-offs to different locations from the airport to the school.

Arriving onto the University campus area, I was amazed at how large this University Campus area really is. I got off the bus and checked in and made my way to the room that had been reserved for me. I settled in made my calls to share my arrival then met up with Forum and Colin another REU research assistant to walk around the hotel. The Hotel is actually a Student Union Building called ” Indiana Memorial Union “. This building is a stone structure building standing for approximately 100’s of years. The Union building has a bowling alley, Billard club, ping pong tables, gym, libraries, study halls, bakery, restaurant, garden, The IU bookstore is huge and has amazing school apparel. We walked from the lobby to level M where they have a tech store, areas of specific studies.

At 7pm I made my way to get my rapid Covid test – results: (negative).

Then we met with Dr. Katie Seik and the others for dinner plans at The Crazy Horse where I had for dinner The Blackened smoked Salmon with veggies and mashed potatoes. It was really nice to meet with some others and enjoy a nice dinner outdoors in a globe called a “solar globe”. We laughed and spoke about classes, GPA’s and studies. We then walked through the town and took time to sightsee and take photos of all the decorated buildings surrounding the town. Students have a true life of everything around them here.

After everyone left, Gretzel and I took a walk to walk off some of the food eaten at dinner and we came across the Art Museum . We had an amazing time taking photos and making videos. Posted below.

Posted on December 15, 2021 by diazoma

December 14th, 2021 Vist to Indiana University:

Today I’m getting myself ready to head out to Indiana University for a visit to the college, meeting Professors that Our team has worked with over the REU research Internship Program summer 2021. I’m so excited to take this trip and see all of my peers that I worked with for weeks through the program. I fly out on December 15th, 2021 at 9:52am out of Dulles International Airport. I will see you all their REU research assistants, team, staff, professors, and Doctors.

Week 8 REU ProHealth Research July 5th – July 9,2021.

Posted on August 26, 2021 by diazoma

Week 8

REU ProHealth Research Program

Tuesday

Synchronous Time

This week Dereck and I finished most of our poster and lightning talk presentation before meeting with Clara and Novia to get feedback. We spent our time creating new infographics for the poster and polishing our presentation. We had the idea to use a QR code in our poster so people could view our prototype.

Meeting with the team.

We went through the prototype, our lightning talk, and poster with Clara and Novia. We noticed some areas we could improve and make changes within our prototype and Clara mentioned future changes that could be made in our more final prototype when we continue our research. She recommended some changes that we should make to our lightener talk presentation in the poster. However, overall, she had mostly positive feedback with a few suggestions.

Wednesday

Synchronous Time

Dereck and I hadn’t looked at our paper in almost a week since we needed to finish our prototype before we could publish it. We added a section to the article to explain our prototype and its functioning, as well as making changes to the rest of it. Dereck finished the remaining edits to the poster and prototype during our synchronized Time. After that, we concentrated on improving our paper.

Workshop – Previous REU Students

We had an extremely educational session this week when three former REU students who went on to top graduate institutions came to speak with us about their experiences. I learned a lot about the application process, which I planned to start soon after this REU (great timing). I didn’t understand how essential research interests and advisers are when deciding which schools to apply to until I completed this REU.

Workshop -Graduate Admissions

Speaking with graduate admissions at Indiana University, Purdue University of Indianapolis IU started me thinking about my application and the research with Old Dominion University in Computer Science I’ll need to do Because not all instructors are willing to write several reference letters for you, I found that having up to four letters of recommendation may be required. I also discovered how the Indiana University admission process works.

Thursday

We met with Novia this week, she gave us more information about photos and for presentation and feedback on the prototype. However, most of our time was spent applying the feedback that Clara gave us.

Synchronous Time

Today, we finalized our paper and lightning talk presentation. It took us a few run-throughs to get it right, but we were able to record us giving our talk in a 5-minute video and then uploaded it to YouTube. Finally, we filled in all the information related to our project in Zion.

Friday

ProHealth Lab Meeting

This week we had our last ProHealth Lab Meeting! It was interesting to hear about Novia’s project, especially because it relates to COVID and social isolation. I’m excited to see what comes out of her research. It was also great to get insight from Ph.D. students about their everyday life.

Takeaways

Things I wish I knew going into the REU

Ideation is a long process (getting to the coding part of research takes a while)
Research sometimes involves waiting (the week we were conducting usability testing, we were at a standstill with our paper because we couldn’t write results till the Friday of the week
Using new applications. I would have familiarized myself more with Figma, Miro, Latex, and especially software for making prototypes
Usability testing is important, but it is a skill that takes time to develop.
Research and writing skills with Latex, Miro, other applications.

5 Things REU students should consider doing to be successful!

When presented projects, make sure to take notes on what interests you. But also keep in mind the advising style and schedules of your mentors.
Time Management is key. You need to know how to spend your time, so you don’t burn out. Plan your weeks and days ahead of time.
Communicate with research members and split up work in an efficient way
It’s important to play to your strengths. For instance, Dereck knew I didn’t have a strong background in English. So, he was able to take a bit more of a lead on writing the paper because he has more experience.
Always ask for help if you are confused or need any help.
Research can be unpredictable and there may be some setbacks, but don’t be discouraged.
Ask questions and be honest with the Research Professionals you are working with, they have already been where you are and can be extremely helpful.

Copy of HomeSHARE Presentation Poster

2021_REU_HomeSHARE_Final Research Paper (12)

CITI CERT of human research

REU CITI Certificate

Week 7 REU ProHealth Research June 28 – July 02,2021

Posted on July 28, 2021 by diazoma

Week 7 REU ProHealth Research June 28 – July 02,2021

This week Our intention was to focus on the poster and the lightning talk. We also wanted to give a response and fix from the recommendations of the peer review. We read over the peer review and decided how we were going to tackle the tasks.

Monday:

Dereck decided we would be able to finish the paper and make changes by Tuesday morning. I was kind of skeptical about that, mainly because I am slow with processing how to write things. At 3pm we were on zoom discussing the written word. We received help from the team in how to create templates for our poster. We met with Novia again at 4:30 pm to arrange a meeting with Dr. Caldiera. After our meeting with Novia, I created a draft poster on google docs and I helped in finding a clean template from windows. We discussed how we liked the poster presented by the other teams this week. We began to create an outline for the draft poster and agreed together we would follow the same method of the research paper to keep it uniform and make sure all that read the paper and saw the poster would be able to follow it nicely.

Tuesday:

Dereck and I got online to get started early, we had a lot of work to get done through the rest of the week and wanted to get it done on time. We began with where we left off on Monday. I was excited to get the draft at least the outline completed so we can begin to put it together on paper. Dereck used his tablet and I am old school so I went to paper and pencil. eventually, Dereck actually thought my drawing was perfect for the visual we wanted to present to the team as a draft and the reasons why we decided on this method. I honestly didn’t want to wait so we sent a message through slack to Novia to see if she would be willing to meet for 10 minutes and give us feedback on the draft. luckily, she was available and immediately responded. We then were all on zoom and after some adjustments and wording, we were able to move forward with the draft designs.

Wednesday:

I got up today amped and ready to conquer. I was excited to start finally putting things together for what will be the prototype software we felt would serve the purpose of our project. I have been really involved in this project because it became personal to me. See, my dad had knee surgery a few months ago and 3 days after being home he passed out on the dining room floor and needed CPR. this was the scariest day of my life. After learning about what happened to him, I began to think about his age and what if he lived alone, what could’ve happened. I am thankful he is not alone. bt, now how about our participants. They are alone, what happens to them. I had this in mind the entire research journey and know that if I could make a difference it would be now. After, doing some more reading on research done with some same goals, I realized they were missing some important findings that we were able to gather. By analyzing the qualitative data we learned about the elderly in ways we wouldn’t have known without the actual participants informing the interviewer. Taking that into consideration, I knew that the project to finding a way to relate the information to the quantitative data would be crucial. We had 1 most important goal in the creating process and that was to keep the elderly participant independent.

Link to the draft poster: REU-draft of HomeSHARE Presentation Poster Draft

Thursday:

Quantitative data graphs

Dereck and I worked on getting as much qualitative data documented ass possble and get a better understanding of what would make sense and how would the elderly view this information if we delivered it just like that. believe me when i say, It was crazy. The amount of data we pulled was insanity and it was then that i realized why researchers remain on projects for years. As we looked over all of this information we then decided that we needed to look at how we can make it easier to view. we began another brainstorming session for the visual of the prototype.

Later that night as I kept thinking of ways to make is easier to display graphical information and data, It came to me. I couldn’t let it go so i began to create and write down my thoughts. I couldn’t sleep so stood up all nightt getting the work done. Excited that i had a breakthrough ih infomation, again this is still just preliminary and as i mentioned before research will progress and get better everyday. This was a breakthrough for now.

By: publicdomainvectors.org

Friday:

Im so tired but at the same time im so excited to share with Dereck the work i had done overnight. We began with our mornng gather with the team and was able to get a few laughs in. The team is funny and awesome. They know how to just keep everything so real. After the meeting with Dr.Seik which is awesome and down to earth and the rest of the REU team. Dereck and I haad a zoom meeting where i was able to share what i cae up with. He was excited and couldn’t believe i never went to bed. After our zoom meeting and communication on the work done, I decided to share with the major memebers of our HomeSHARE team Novia and Dr. Caldiera. I waited for a response and decided to have lunch.

I went to Chipolte and got an amazing burrito. I got back to work in my office and looked at slack for any messages. Nothing yet, I decided that I would at least begin to work on the pototype application in the mean time and the application in needed to use to create a visual of he software. I began to use www.justintime.com. The app was fairly easy to use and the craeting for mobile devices was great. I got excited that it wasn’t going t be an extremely difficult app to understand. I began creating and here are a few pics on the prototype.

Next week is WEEK 8 and our last week in the research project. I actually sad about it although i’m looking forward to having some vacation time. Bitter sweet!!!

See you all next week. Have a great weekend!

REU Wk 6- June 21st – June 25th, 2021.

Posted on July 28, 2021 by diazoma

Wk6 Blog June 21st -June 25th:

This week I got to the gym around 5:30 am daily, I worked out hard. Then began my day amped. I am ready to take on the day. I began by looking at the week on canvas.

Week 6 :

Wednesday, 2p in [Back to Katie’s Room this week] zoom. We will have guests zooming in to discuss their careers after their graduate degrees and how research is different in their careers than in academia.

To prep for the workshop:

Please come with questions about what industry research is like compared to academia.

Research our speakers:

Dr. Haley MacLeod, Facebook
Dr. Tammy Toscos, Parkview Health
Dr. Chris Schaefbauer, Pinterest

The struggles of the week:

My struggles this week have been the amount of reading and notes written to be able to write the research paper. I struggle with reading 20-30 research papers as I am a single mom of two and trying to keep a household together. I am also, bilingual and am not accustomed to reading research documents. The technological words used have me looking in the dictionary more than the paper.I hope my brain can absorb these meanings quickly.

My goals this week:

Creating a link to your personal website.

Talk to your mentors about your site to see if they have any feedback.

Your publication plan – If your plan is to submit to a conference due in January, note how you plan to complete the paper when going back to school.

An update on how your meetings with your mentor last week and this week went.

Make sure you have a discussion about expectations for July 4 – what day are you taking off? The 2nd or 5th?

A link to a draft or sketch of your poster. We will be reviewing your digital poster drafts on June 30, so start thinking about what visualizations and text you need on your poster.

An outline of your lightning talk. We will review a draft of your lightning talk on June 30, so start thinking about your talk now. What parts will you discuss vs. your partner?

A link to your Reviewer Response Table. Make sure you have peer review for both weeks represented. This should really be a table – not an opinion piece on what you think about the reviewer’s opinion. Unsure what this should look like? Look at the Wednesday Workshop notes from Week 4.

Week 6: Draft Abstract, Intro, Results, and Future Work; Finalize Related Work

“Finalize” your Related Work Based on your Reviewer Response Table and your discussions with your mentors, edit your Related Work for your “Finalized Related Work.”

Continue drafting your Introduction Based on your Reviewer Response Table (add to your Reviewer Response Table based on last week’s peer review) and your discussion with your mentors, edit your Introduction as needed.

Draft your Abstract, Findings, and Future Work draft your Abstract, Findings, and Future Work. This is the time to have a frank discussion with your mentors to say, “What can I get done in the next 3 weeks?” and then communicate that in the Findings and Future Work.

Week 6:

I continue to review what I wrote for the finished research paper in my office at 9 am each day before my morning meeting with mentors and Dereck. I’m am ready for my mentor meeting with Ph.D. mentor Novia and Dr. Clara We discussed the ideation of the product and the functionality and all the other options that we will not indulge in but will be seen as a complete product. We are helping the elderly remain self-sufficient and live longer independently. Our ultimate goal is to create a way for the independent to feel empowered with this product in their hands at all times.

We spoke about having a draft prototype already created to display for Clara to see tomorrow Tuesday 6/23/21. Dereck my research partner on the HomeSHARE project made suggestions that I feel are going to help us with the presentation in the end.

By: Omayra Diaz

Every day we had a 20-30 minute meeting on Gather with the rest of the research assistant and Dr. Siek from 11:00 am – 11:30 am.

Soon after that meeting my partner and I would take a 15-20 minute break then get right to work. Dereck and I began working on different ideas to create the poster and continue working on the paper. I am excited, nervous, and anxious about writing parts of the paper as I still am not too familiar with the application Overleaf. Instead, I would write on google docs. Dereck would write on Overleaf to complete the paper. I thank him for relieving that stress for me. This allowed me to concentrate on the prototype and the application.

Today, while I was working a bad storm was brewing then suddenly boom, it was definitely scary. We finally have power after a storm ravaged the area. Trees down & power out. I think the storm Dr.Siek mentioned a few days ago has made its way to Virginia today.

Time to start working hard and get back into the swing of things. Since the power was out for about an hour or two. We began to work on drafts for prototype and the outline.

Omayra & Derecks’ outline to work on for the prototype.

2:40 Start – Contact info

2:41 What’s the problem – Nice image and citation of de Folter et al. – May want to summarize the bullets a bit more – Less text in general may be nice (or even larger font)

– I lost everything I typed I don’t know where it went

2:44 Methodology – The categories and code picture could be a little bigger.

– +1 – There’s a lot of text and a small screenshot of something I don’t really understand

– I would love to see example pictures or mapping the sensors of the participant’s home

– Maybe include some images based upon the text – Instead of a figure of the qualitative system, you may want to share some example quotes to show the coding

2:45 General Prototype Design

– Could be good to add a screenshot of the prototype instead of switching the screen share to save time.

– If you want to do a gif and want some guidance, feel free to reach out to Forum – Keep everything in the same PowerPoint even though the transition was good

– Nice use of the pointer on the prototype display.

– Keep the display information Short so you will be able to manage on-time

– Great consideration for color blindness

– Name under the prototype portion is too small – Autonomy is a huge factor the researchers said they took into account

— how does the prototype help with this?

– What factors affect the prototype design to achieve goals?

2:47 Still showing prototype – Better to have a gif or animation to describe the functionality of the prototype, rather than going back and forth

2:50 Why it Matters

– I would love to see something more visual that shows the point of the slide

– Keep Why it matters and What is next on the same page based on time

2:51 What is next – Depending on time, you could do a cognitive walkthrough or an inspection method before usability testing

We were working for about 4 hours before having enough information on the draft poster and the draft prototype.

By: Omayra Diaz (lo-fi prototype).

Every day we had a 20-30 minute meeting on Gather with the rest of the research assistant and Dr. Siek from 11:00 am – 11:30 am.

This was a successful week and have completed all assignments given. Research is never done or final, it’s just another step forward, a new breakthrough or resolution that can get better each time. I’m excited to be part of this research and look forward to learning more through the process.

Week 8

Posted on July 16, 2021 by ourbina

During week 8, Greatzel and I did a lot of things, we started with the final trials with our sensors and our solar radiation shields, in which to be honest I went through a lot of heat since where I live extreme heat is something that is lived normally and Those days was not the exception, the heat was so strong that I felt like my skin was burning, but at the same time I enjoyed doing it since I was collecting data on a topic that I really like, here below I show you a photo of how it looked like doing a trial:

After doing all the trials we did not finish the poster, in which we made many modifications depending on the feedback we received from Dr. Dana and Gabi and thanks to them we were able to obtain a much better poster than we expected and we were able to include a lot of information.

5 things I wish I had known before REU:

1.- I would have liked to know how is the process of writing a paper and all the process that needs to be followed so as not to damage the final result.
2.- I would have liked to know how to read the papers much faster since that saves a lot of time that you can invest in other things.
3.- the workload that a research needs and everything that has to be done.
4.- I would have liked to apply much earlier since this is a great experience and helps you grow a lot professionally.
5.- The satisfaction that leaves once you finish all the pending related to the research.

5 things REU students should consider doing to be successful:
1.- Organizing the time depending on the things you need to do will help to have better results.
2.- Always be in communication with your mentors and colleagues as they will help you to do things better.
3.- You always ask questions, that will help you better understand the expected result.
4.- You can read the asbtract of a paper to know if it is what you were looking for.
5.- Believe in yourself, if you are in REU it is because you are capable of doing everything you propose, your mentors and teachers believe in you, YOU DO IT TOO

Greatzel’s 8th Week

Posted on July 11, 2021 by lunabia

Hello everyone!

I know I’m late again but too many things happened on Friday for me to sit down and write what happened the entire week. First things first, we did more data gathering this week and I felt really good about it until my phone took a dive into the water and I lost my notes that I needed for the paper! Luckily, my friend who went data gathering with me took photos of me each time I moved to a different phase of the trial. So I was able to estimate the phase I was in during the trial and use that for my data analysis. But it sure was such a hassle to get a new phone and to log in to my accounts again. Plus the cost of a new phone is not fun… The data gathering was a good thing — but it made other things more complex, like for example, the new results changed how our paper is written, how our power point is presented, how our lightning talk changed, and how our poster will look like. All those edits in a span of 2 days or something was a LOT.

So I honestly don’t know how to answer the questions in this week’s blog since I’m not sure if I was successful. Is this a side effect of always getting graded so I’m not sure how to measure my own growth? hmm. A lot of the times I would tell myself that as long as I learn something, I am succeeding.

But anyway, here are my 5 things you wish you knew going into the REU:

I wish I knew how much work load it was going to be. To be honest I didn’t expect it to be that busy.
I wish I knew that your graphics card will download drivers for your monitors, but the newer your graphics card is, the more incompatibility issues will arise that might cause boot up problems. I’m saying this because multiple times during the first few weeks of the REU I had to reset my computer. So much hassle…. Make sure you got your technology healthy!
I wish I knew how to read scientific literature better (read the abstract and discussion first before considering reading the other parts of the paper)
I wish I applied last year so I could have done 2 REUs before I graduated
I wish took care of myself more so I could have performed a lot better in the REU program

5 things REU students should consider doing to be successful:

You must read the abstract and discussion before you decide to read the entire paper – You can lose track of the bigger picture.
Ask many questions!
Connect with your professors/mentors/peers!
Join the events your peers organize!
Believe in your ability to learn and improve! (Neuroplasticity)

I want to thank you to all our mentors and professors here in this REU. It was such a great experience and I love how they made me feel that I can reach out to them and that I belong. Although my plans are to go into the industry after graduation, I’m happy that I have the network to go back into research when I get the opportunity to. Thank you to my peers as well for being great people, I wish we could’ve been there together in person. I’m so proud to be part of this REU!

Here’s some photos of me data gathering!

Shout out to my friend who painstakingly stayed with me during my trials! I got her a nice gift as a thank you 🙂

Week 8 | July 5th – July 9th

Posted on July 9, 2021 by vamosq

Blog

Monday

I know I was not supposed to work this weekend but my mind is relieved when getting things done so here are some of the things I completed this weekend.

Edited the week 7 video for Prohealth’s Facebook. Greatzel <3 posted it and emailed Alex, Juan, and Yuxing to promote it. Here’s the post:

Drafted two promo flyers for the first virtual research symposium. Here’s a pic of both:

Coded one of the interviews(participant #2)
- This was my first time coding ever independently. Nudrat and I worked on coding collectively on Friday. It’s been an interesting experience. We still have to code 3 more interviews.
Started working on the REU management
- Colin helped us download an image from Adobe Stock to add to our project. Thanks, Colin!
Nudrat and I emailed back one of the participants who could not show up to the interview on Friday. We are trying to reschedule her for this week.
Created a Poster pitch word doc to start preparing for Friday’s poster presentation.
Updated online presence with the ProHealth research experience.

Today I talked to Nudrat and she reminded me to rest. After she told me this, I reflected and felt grateful that she is so upfront. So I went to Alexander Park and walked/ran 5k. It felt amazing!

Tuesday

This morning Nudrat and I met to work on the things we need to get done daily for this week. We went to the stand-up meeting and Dr. Siek talked to us about what to look forward to this week and the REUs helped me brainstorm some ideas for the caption on the promotional flyers of Friday’s symposium. After this, Nudrat and I did the exit interview with Raj. I worked a little on the lightning talk ppt. I plan to work on the response table and getting the caption for the promotional flyers ready for tomorrow.

Thank you to the person that peer-reviewed our paper. Here’s what I could work on today on the response table:

**The yellow highlights are for the sections I am not very sure about and will ask for some help from Nudrat and mentors.

I hope to also finish the code for participant #4. Nudrat and I are splitting the work in half(I am working on the pair numbers and she is on the odd). She is transcribing participant #5 today.

Wednesday

Today we started advertising Friday’s poster presentations on social media:

Today, I finished the code for participant #4 and I plan on transcribing interview #5 after the Wednesday workshop. I emailed three faculty who have been really supportive throughout my academic career at GGC and invited them to Friday’s presentation. Greatzel sent another email to 10+ others which I thought was amazing <3!

Today’s workshop was very interesting. Guests spoke about graduate schools and their experience getting into graduate school. They shared useful tips and links that are great resources to start exploring opportunities. They mentioned: networking, statement of purpose, recommendation letters, online presence, how to approach faculty, among others.

After the workshop, Nudrat helped format the poster + drafted our poster pitch. We met Arash 6 – 735 p.m. and he gave us feedback on our poster, helped us complete the poster pitch, and talked about creating a checklist of data to be transferred before the REU ends and future work. He will peer-review our paper by tomorrow night so that we can have the deliverable ready by Friday. Thanks, Arash!

After this meeting, I made changes to our poster. I feel exhausted from being on the screen for long periods of time. I decided to work on the transcription tomorrow instead.

Thursday

Today, Nudrat and I will be working on the edits + video for the lightning talk ppt

Here’s our official lightning talk video

It took us a few hours to complete it but we did it! Great job Nudrat 🙂 feeling so happy to experience this with you. We updated the Zion with the video and updated profile info. And we made sure to add the video to our booth for tomorrow’s Gather town for the poster presentation.

We met with James this afternoon 130-215. He went over independent study opportunities with Nudrat, we updated him on yesterday’s meeting with Arash, he discussed possible timelines in the near future. Dr. Siek accompanied us to discuss the steps moving forward in this study. Thank you both for your time.

I am planning to work on the last transcription later today and practice the poster pitch that Nudrat has been modifying for tomorrow. For tomorrow, we plan to focus on the poster pitch practice and finalizing our research paper for submission.

Friday

Today is the last day of the ProHealth REU! These weeks went by so fast. Yesterday I only finished 20 minutes of transcription. It took me a while. I hope to finish tonight.

Here are my favorite pictures of the week:

It happened yesterday while Nudrat and I were recording the video for the presentation. It was funny because every filter she tried made her transparent. We laughed a lot and that’s the reason we couldn’t share the same background :(…but it was fun. Especially because we were so stressed and trying to get things done and it was a good thing to break the seriousness.

Poster sessions went great. We met multiple people and three faculty from Georgia Gwinnett College were actually able to make it, we got very good questions and it felt very nice to see so many people in Gather. I am sure every REU did an amazing job. I am definitely going to miss seeing and sharing with Nudrat every day. She has been a wonderful teammate and also has become a close friend. Thank you ProHealth team, Dr. Siek, Dr. Clawson, Arash, all the healthcare journey’s lab team, REUs, and thank you Nudrat for your support in every step of the process.

See you soon!

Week 8|July 6- July 9, 2021| Weekly Blogs

Posted on July 9, 2021 by nnawar

I cannot believe we are almost done with the 8 week program. It is baffling how time goes by when you are having so much fun.

Tuesday July 6th, 2021

I did not touch anything for the entire time we were on a long weekend break. I have decided I was not going to look at those things until this morning. This vacation was much needed because I feel very refreshed, and I woke up extremely early today to go back to work. It is crazy to believe we only have three days left.

Valentina and I met for the morning to discuss anything we had to do. Valentina informed me about the work she did over the weekend. One of our participants did not show up for our interview on Friday, and Valentina had to do a follow-up on them. I worked on updating my online presence, and I discussed it with Valentina in case I was on the wrong path.

In our stand up meeting, we had questions for Dr. Siek. We wanted to know if we were going to have an excused letter for our professors, and if she will open our online presence submission module.

After our meeting, Valentina and I did our exit meeting together. This interview with Raj took about two hours since it was both of us. Valentina and I decided to do our interview together because of our shared experiences and we filled any gaps that we may have. She was very kind in helping me out when I was stuck on questions, and Raj was super nice and added us on LinkedIn.

Later at 4pm, I met with Forum to discuss about our social event. This week we will be doing presentation roulette. I let him know what we did last week, and how this week we are hoping for more people to join us. After our meeting, I worked on the coding of our participants, and I worked on transcribing and taking some screenshots for visualizing effects for our audience.

Wednesday July 7th, 2021

Today I worked on the three PowerPoints for social event. It was really fun to create them for our event on Friday. I am really excited to see who will be the ones presenting. Then, I coded our participants responses, and honestly, it was a lot of interpreting that confused me a lot. Especially because it could be interpreted in different ways. Valentina and I later worked on our poster pitch, and we just went over what we will say.

At 2 pm, we had our workshop skills from three previous REUs They discussed a lot about their experience as Grad student and how the ProHealth REU program has impacted them in their journey. We also had Cheryl, who discussed about the admission process and what the admissions committee is looking for. Dr. Siek and Cheryl’s inputs helped me learn the day-to-day process in applying for PhD/Masters program. I also looked at Grad schools and researched a bit more about the topics I am interested in researching for the future. I was still concerned on how can I look for these professors, as Dr. Siek advised, and their line of work that could get me interested. But then I remembered, we had t do the same thing when we first started our prohealth REU program. We had to do forward citations on our soon-to-be mentors, so for future purposes, I can use the same method again with professors from the institutions I am applying to. Dr. Siek also sent us a link where we can apply for reduced price in other affiliated institutions with the REU.

We met with Arash for the last time for the ProHealth REU where we discussed over the posters. He helped us a lot in writing our pitch smoothly. Valentina and I also discussed with Arash when can we all meet with him after our hiatus. Arash discussed how we were going to transfer the data, and we focused on what publication we are aiming for. Arash gave us the task to discuss with Dr. Siek and James about our funding for the participants and how many participants could we recruit.

Thursday July 8th, 2021

The crunch day! Valentina and I prepped for our lightning talk over and over again until we perfected it. Valentina was the one who had to jump a lot of hurdles to submit our video. I felt like I was not much of a help to her. We fixed a lot of the powerpoints as we went along. We also practiced and timed our poster pitch, and it was a real struggle to shorten and note everything. We decided to just focus on our lightning presentation instead and record it.

At 1:30 pm, we met with James and Dr. Siek to discuss about my independent study next year, continuation of the paper and project, and the funding and participants for the project. They were both incredibly supportive and helpful for our decision for the next steps after the REU. Valentina and I decided to meet with James on the 19th for our follow up, but I will not be able to meet the week after that.

At 4 pm, we had a poster walk through. Valentina and I were still a bit rusty on our things. However, we got the hang of it and decided to meet the next morning to go over the project again. I coded away for the rest of the night.

For our lightning talk: Click here

Friday July 9th, 2021

Valentina and I could not sleep because we were so extremely excited. In our morning meeting, we met to discuss what we will be doing through out the day, but finally, we are going to not be as busy as we thought. We had our ProHealth Lab today where we discussed about the PhD students day to day life and how they juggle school and research. All the students involved with ProHealth REU went in the format of first years, middle years, and nearly seniors. Ben mentioned how through out this journey, it is necessary to have self-care because now he cannot type more than 3 to 4 hours.

After our lab, all of us in the REU had to join a meeting with Ms. Pooja, where we had to do our survey. We exited the zoom as soon as we finished. Valentina and I met immediately after that because we encountered a problem with our overleaf. Turns out, the paper that Arash reviewed is the wrong paper/old paper. Valentina could not see it but I could. Because she had gotten rid of it, but Arash and I had not. So we had to change everything to get it situated in order to submit. I will say I was glad to be back on my own computer as well. Finally I went from being a green screen to finally having a green screen (Please check Valentina’s post for the progress). I missed using my computer so much, I do not know why, but I really did.

Valentina and I then practiced over and over for the next two hours so we had everything good to go. Then we had people coming in and it was not as nerve racking as we thought. Everyone who came over had great questions and showed exceptional enthusiasm for our project. I was kind of sad that my mentors could not make it. But it was really nice to see Valentina and Greatzel’s mentors to come in and cheer for our project.

As soon as we were done, we all took a break. Then we joined our last social ever. It was really sad but also really fun to enjoy and be informal. We really missed Valentina, she was not feeling well today 🙁 . I documented Dr. Siek’s response for her Presentation Roulette for Valentina because I knew she would enjoy it.

I cannot believe it is really over. I am really going to miss seeing everyone from the REU. It is really saddening that I will not see everyone’s beautiful face for our stand up meeting. I was always really excited for them because I could rant about the amount of work. Now it is officially over, and I do not know when I can see them. I am excited though that I still get to work with James, Arash, and Valentina. But it is sad that I will not be seeing Valentina every single day, she is really amazing and taught me so much. She is very understanding, has an excellent work ethic, and is determined and ambitious. She has become really close to me like family. We have laughed together, cried together, and so many more within these 8 weeks. I cannot wait to see everyone some day. I will also miss seeing Forum and have social coordination meeting. We would discuss about our social plans for 10 minutes and then for the next two hours we will be catching up, ranting (me mainly about being stressed and Forum listened mostly), and bonding over similar experiences. It was nice to have someone who was very similar to me in ways. So I will miss him very much.

I am really glad this research experience gave me new and amazing friends. Everyone has been welcoming, similar to me, and loving in so many ways. I really will miss them all and cannot wait to see them someday.

Me crying because it is over and I will miss my new friends:

via GIPHY

Takeaways:

My main takeaway from this program is that we must always keep an open-mind to beginning a project. Anything can happen, and it is extremely important to communicate effectively. Valentina and I also learned about the importance Integrative Medicine providers have on communities and minimizing the maternal and fetal mortality rate. Researches similar to this must be encouraged within the community so there could be more advocacy about reaching to low-income communities that need it the most.