Now that we’re getting farther into the summer semester, and I’m getting farther into my IDEA Grant project, I’m glad I’m getting to put some of the skills I’ve developed during previous research experiences to use. On Saturday, I finished writing an abstract on the association of body fat percentage with the variability of autonomic control of blood pressure. This was not directly part of my IDEA Grant work, but it’s working with other data from the same parent study. I was surprised and impressed how quickly I managed to write this abstract, compared to the first abstract I wrote while working in my lab. I was glad to see the skills I’ve been developing as a researcher bear fruit.
I’m looking forward to continue developing my writing, data analysis, data and interpretation, and science communication throughout the course of completing this project. Luckily, I have the support of my faculty mentor and the graduate students in my lab to help me learn as much from this experience as I can. I’m glad that I have them available as a resource, and specifically focusing on writing, I’m glad that I have FSU’s Office of National Fellowships available as another resource when I start applying for fellowships for graduate school.
In addition to refining my skills in research, I’m glad that working on my summer project will help to expand my knowledge in an area of physiology I’m not super familiar with, yet. This project builds on my previous experiences studying cardiovascular physiology by exploring how it’s affected by extreme respiration. So far, the project has been cruising pretty smoothly. I’ve attended some study visits but have many left still. I’ve always struggled feeling comfortable performing tests directly on participants, which is one of the main areas I hope to improve this semester. I think it will just take me time, so I’m glad I’m going to have more hands-on research experience this semester than I ever have previously.
My IDEA Grant project involves analyzing specific data collected from participants doing a larger parent study in our lab. Unfortunately, and unexpectedly, this parent study has been defunded. We’ll still be able to take participants through July, meaning that my project won’t need to be scrapped or anything like that, but I will have less data than expected by the end of the summer, and our lab will have less to work on. It’s certainly disappointing regardless. It’s especially frustrating because the project was defunded due to the federal crackdown on DEI but is not studying any DEI topics. The funding for the project was from a grant designed to help early career investigators from diverse backgrounds get their research started, but the funding was being used to study conventional health questions. Rather than changing the mechanism of the grant to no longer favor diverse candidates, they cut the funding from it and threw away projects that were already in progress.
In lighter news, I have a new work from home buddy, pictured below. He’s very rambunctious but also very cute. So far, the only way he’s contributed to my research is sitting on my keyboard and chewing my chords, but I have faith that he’ll be a great asset to my studies someday.
HSF House Blogs 