During summer 2015, I worked with Dr. Art Maerlender at University of Nebraska- Lincoln. I was a member of the Minority Health Disparities Program as part of the Summer Research Program at UNL with 11 other students from universities around the US.
With Dr. Maerlender, I worked on a systematic review of literature concerning concussion and mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) related to anxiety and mood. I was given the freedom to pick my own project topic – something I had never done before and was very excited about! My project involved assessing literature quality and content of the 24 articles relevant to my topic. While at UNL, I was also offered a free seminar with other students in my program about Social Network Analysis. Using the techniques covered in this crash-course, I was able to visualize the connectivity of articles selected by examining the network of citations. My project was presented as a poster at the UNL Summer Research Symposium in August, and I am continuing to work with Dr. Maerlender in order to publish my results.
Overall, this summer was the best experience I could have imagined. New experiences included learning about concussions & neuropsychology, designing my own study, conducting a systematic review, writing a paper, and exploring Lincoln, Nebraska. The program offered lots of graduate school advice, as well as a GRE crash-course. I also received amazing advice and guidance from my mentor that has shaped my career aspirations for the future.
Submitted by Lili Rothschild ’17