What is your Lucerna project about?

My article, “Associations of Environmental Factors and Physical Activity Behaviors: A Photo Analysis, is about how the built environment affects physical activity behaviors among underserved communities in the Kansas City metropolitan area.

Why are you interested in this topic?

I am interested in improving health equity for our community and exploring the associations of the built environment on health behaviors was the perfect start.

What have been the benefits and challenges of this project?

The benefits of this project include working closely with faculty and becoming familiar with scholarly-scientific writing.

What is your advice for students who are interested in publishing their work in Lucerna?

My advice for students who are interested in publishing their work in Lucerna is to make sure you meet your deadlines and carefully read the requirements before submitting your work.

What are your professional plans or goals?

My professional goal is to work towards global health equity by developing sustainable water and sanitation systems as well as increasing access to culturally tailored health education. I will be starting my Masters in Global Public Health Spring of 2022 and plan to pursue a doctoral program soon after.

What is your Lucerna project about?

My article, “The Necessity of Art Programming in Restructuring the Prison System,” is about art programming in prisons and how it can be helpful in lowering recidivism rates and expanding the skill sets of incarcerated individuals. I combined quantitative data from previous research studies with the qualitative answers of people who have worked with prison programs.

Why are you interested in this topic?

I believe that everyone should have access to a creative outlet! My love of writing has gotten me through the most difficult times of my life. I had heard about organizations that facilitated art projects in local prisons before, so I decided to look deeper into it. I decided to incorporate interviews with facilitators into my research, and that’s when the project took off for me. My sources shared so many personal stories with me. From the first interview that I conducted, I could tell that this was going to become more than just another paper to me.

What have been the benefits and challenges of this project?

I’m much more educated now on how our justice system functions, but there’s so much ground to cover that I still feel like I’m only beginning to understand it all. I’m grateful that I was able to connect with so many people who not only consented to being interviewed, but fully embraced it. The biggest challenge was in editing, because I found the writing process so enjoyable and I felt loyal to my first draft. I went through so many rounds of edits, partly so that I could find a more objective tone. There was no way to condense all the information that I gathered from the interviews into a single paper, so I had to make some sacrifices and narrow my focus.

What is your advice for students who are interested in publishing their work in Lucerna?

There is no one way to do research! I was intimidated by the idea of it at first, but research in its most basic form is just asking a question and then attempting to find an answer. I research local restaurants extensively on Yelp, and you could most definitely write a paper about the overlaps in the Kansas City foodie scene and the gaps that we’ve yet to fill. Pick something you care about and go from there.

What are your professional plans or goals?

I’m still figuring out what I like. I have always loved writing, and I care about humanitarian issues, so for the past few years I’ve planned to combine the two through nonprofit work. I’m planning on going to graduate school, but not directly after undergrad. I want to give myself time to explore all the fields that I’m interested in.

What is your Lucerna project about?  

My article “From MMR to COVID-19: A Study of Vaccine Perception Over Time and the Modern Effects of Social Media” is about the perception of vaccination and how it has changed from the age of MMR to COVID-19. I look at how social media has played a role in anti-vaccination sentiment and the evolution of this movement across time. 

Why are you interested in this topic?  

While I was writing this paper in Fall 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic had just started and vaccines were being made. Seeing how this virus turned the world upside-down was flabbergasting, and the perception of the new vaccine was equally intriguing. While the virus was new, the concept of vaccination wasn’t, so the public reaction to COVID-19 vaccination was immensely interesting to me. Also, as a medical school student, the crossover between the medical and social worlds was something I hadn’t studied before, but I integrated two aspects of my own life that I hadn’t looked at analytically before.  

What have been the benefits and challenges of this project?  

There were many benefits and challenges of working on this project. Some of the benefits include researching an interdisciplinary topic in a detailed manner that I haven’t been able to before. I was given the opportunity to dive into a unique type of research that broadened my knowledge and perception of social media and social movements in a medical context. I was able to enhance my writing style and learned to work flexibly to create the best paper possible. I was also immensely grateful to work with an amazing mentor who helped me write this paper every step of the way.  

Some of the challenges include the time and attention to detail that producing a good quality research paper required. More often than not, research requires a different level of patience and grit that can be difficult to maintain at the early stages of the paper. Additionally, keeping up with deadlines was definitely challenging, but an important requirement to meet.  

What is your advice for students who are interested in publishing their work in Lucerna?  

My advice for students who are interested in publishing their work in Lucerna is to start early and submit with no regrets. I think starting early and making many edits/revisions yourself or with a mentor/peers is a vital first step to writing a successful paper that will be accepted into the journal. The second piece of advice is to simply submit their paper! Don’t be afraid of your work not being good enough or traditional enough. Lucerna is an open-minded journal that loves unique and creative pieces. Along those lines, if you ever have questions, don’t be afraid to ask the staff! Everyone is really friendly and wants to help you succeed!   

What are your professional plans or goals? 

I am a second-year student in UMKC’s BA/MD program. My professional goals are to graduate from medical school and hopefully match at a good residency program. While I am not sure what specialty I would like to pursue, I aim to become a helpful and humble clinician-scientist, both practicing medicine and (hopefully) working in my own research lab.