IDEA Grants

Hello everyone,  My name is Jonathan Michel, and I am a senior at Florida State University majoring in Cell and Molecular Neuroscience on the pre-med track. I am truly honored to be selected as one of this year’s IDEA Grant Awardees. Alongside my research partner, Copeland Frazee, I will be working on nutrition and brain health in older adults.  Continue reading “Jonathan Michel: Nutrition Research and the Human Brain”

Hello! My name is Lauren, and I am currently a third-year student here at FSU, where I am majoring in Biology and minoring in Geology. I’m from Tampa, Florida, where I was born and raised with my parents, older sister, and Havanese-breed dog, Chip. Besides classes and research, I love making time to journal, bake,Continue reading “Lauren Yoakum: Paleobiology, Geology and Clarinet”

Every life is slated for a non-zero amount of suffering. Much of it is banal (a wounded knee or mild social rejection) but some is deeply painful and, in many cases, irreversible, like the loss of a loved one. But in the midst of that suffering, the relationships we have with other people can softenContinue reading “Nilaja Grant: Oxytocin and Consolation”

My name is Lucas David Gonzalez, and I am a filmmaker at Florida State University focused on telling human stories through cinematic worldbuilding, no matter the scale. My work is influenced by my background growing up in Maracaibo, Venezuela, before immigrating to the United States at a young age, an experience that shaped my understandingContinue reading “Lucas David Gonzalez: A Film of Our Dark Future”

Hello, and welcome to my project, Sappho in Translation: Literary and Artistic Representations. My name is Adison Delgado, and I am a second-year student at FSU studying English-Literature, Media, and Culture and Media/Communication. Outside of class, I love to read and write, and I am involved in Her Campus FSU, Pride Student Union, and SoutheastContinue reading “Addison Delgado: Sappho in Translation Across Literature and Art”

Hello! My name is Ariana Chu, and I am a second-year psychology major on a pre-medical track. I am from South Florida and have lived there my entire life, until moving to Tallahassee. The research topic I chose was an expansion upon the field research I conducted in my freshman year of college for myContinue reading “Arianna Chu: Burnout among Inpatient Hospital Workers”

Hello! My name is Ainsley Bowie, and I am a junior at Florida State University. My major is Public Health, and one day I hope to attend graduate school. With the help of the IDEA Grant Program, I will be completing a research project this summer for my Honors in the Major thesis on socialContinue reading “Ainsley Bowie: Socializing in Long-term Ostomates”

My name is Jordyn Bain, and I am currently a third-year student studying International Affairs and Economics on a pre-law track. I am in the process of completing an Honors in the Major Project. I began my research in the fall, and with the support of the IDEA Grant committee and my research mentor, IContinue reading “Jordyn Bain: Developing Policy Recommendations to Combat Human Trafficking”

Hi! My name is Matthew Baca, and I’m an Exercise Physiology major at Florida State University on the pre-med track. I’ve always been interested in medicine, especially because of my love for sports growing up. Over time, that interest has expanded beyond athletics into a broader passion for understanding how the body works and howContinue reading “Matthew Baca: Mindfulness and Hypertension”

Hi! My name is Copeland Frazee, and I am a sophomore at Florida State University.This summer, I will be working on an IDEA Grant research project that focuses on a simple, yet important idea: how does what we eat impact how we think, move, and age.  My partner, Jonathan, and I will be looking atContinue reading “Copeland Frazee: Integrative Science for Healthy Aging”

Our research looks to understand whether current sodium intake guidelines should be revised to ones that are variable and individualized. Current sodium intake guidelines are the same for everybody – 2,300 mg a day – regardless of a host of physiological factors that may impact how much sodium people actually need. As previously discussed, twoContinue reading “Zoe Silva: The Greater Impact & Future Direction”

Impact: One thing that surprised me was how much we can learn about our health just from tissue stiffness. When tissue becomes stiffer or softer than normal, it can be a sign of serious problems like cancer or heart disease. Studying such alterations can give us better ways of diagnosing diseases at an early stageContinue reading “Dev Sangha: Why Tissue Stiffness Matters”

With the summer coming to a close, I am happy to report that my research project is approaching its final stages! The creatures are coming to fruition, and my painting is developing in an exciting direction thanks to the help of my family and peers. I recently moved back home for the rest of theContinue reading “Antonia Pretelt: Looking to the Future and Final Reflections”

Hello again! My name is Kellan Kissinger and I am an IDEA Grant recipient currently working on an Honors in the Major thesis about how female utopianism appears in medieval and contemporary texts. Specifically, my thesis aims to explore the intersections between Christine de Pizan’s medieval A Book of the City of Ladies and contemporaryContinue reading “Kellan Kissinger: Impacts and Next Steps”

Dear Reader: What does your connection with the environment look like? My IDEA Grant project examines social-ecological system connections and documents the relationship between human and environmental well-being. Inspired by my passion for environmental justice, I advocate for a rural fishery and historic community in my working paper, presenting the Apalachicola Bay oyster decline asContinue reading “Morgan Krause: Changing Environments Changes Communities”

I am currently in the stage of data analysis, where the long hours of designing the experiment, fieldwork, and navigating setbacks begin to take shape as meaningful results. My research examines the intersection of pregnancy, immunity, and parasitic burden in Atlantic stingrays (Hypanus sabinus), offering a unique opportunity to understand stress physiology across vertebrates moreContinue reading “Brooke Hagans: The Kind of Scientist I Want to Be”

When I first began my IDEA Grant research project, I knew I was ultimately undertaking a project that sits at the intersection between biology, computer science, and mathematics. My project, which focuses on creating a new computational tool for analyzing spatial transcriptomics data, is not just solely about writing code or producing pretty figures. AtContinue reading “Andy Gonzalez: The Organization of Life”

As my research comes to a close, I can only reflect on my work and what I hope it will achieve. The impact of my research lies in its ability to confront and reframe how we as individuals and as a society think about mortality, decay, and the sacredness of impermanence. My project draws fromContinue reading “Joanna Godfrey: Final Reflection on the Inevitable End”

Dear Esteemed Reader, I’ve had the privilege to observe different methods in microtonal, tuning and sound synthesis discourse this past month. Much of it has been in regards to the Plomp-Levelt dissonance curve and its implications about how we perceive harmony. This plot represents the amount of dissonance between two frequencies. The first being theContinue reading “Pete Fasano: Dialogue of Dissonance”

My research, which examines how computer information systems were used as a tool for environmentally conscious city planning during the 1960s-1980s, provides meaningful background for several issues in the city planning field today. First, it relates to today’s question of the use of artificial intelligence in city planning, an issue which also faces many otherContinue reading “Flora Domitrovic: The Impact of Data in City Planning”

Throughout the month of July, I have begun the start of two major paintings, pictured later in this post. As I was looking through old artwork, I noticed that I had a habit of choosing red and teal as colors, and decided to integrate them as major background colors. For my first painting, I createdContinue reading “Alex Davidoff: Being Inspired by Family and History”

The last few weeks have been focused on the transition from conducting research that interest me to presenting research that interest others. With my mentor, Dr. Atkeson, we created a folder on Dropbox where I uploaded similar research conducted by others and we discussed it in-depth. One of the papers that grabbed my attention wasContinue reading “Miguel Arceo-Miranda: Painting the Bigger Picture”

After frontloading a lot of the high-impact effort of my research at the beginning of the summer, I now have had plenty of time to reflect on the experience. Above all, I want to expand the scope of how people perceive what theatre is and what it can be. This work shows that even withContinue reading “Max Allen: Experimenting with Community Theatre”

This summer has been a whirlwind between classes, internships, and research. Although there were many challenges, I am truly grateful for the experience the IDEA grant program has given me. To recap, my research project aimed to provide new knowledge on the mechanical behavior of 3D printed wood-plastic composites in the context of the existingContinue reading “Rameen Ahmad: The end.. or a new beginning?”

As part of my IDEA Grant research project, I have been reimagining higher education for incarcerated and justice-impacted students. Across the country, more colleges and universities are beginning to recognize the transformative role they can play in reentry and reintegration. Beyond just offering non-credit courses or a certificate of completion, some programs are now providingContinue reading “From Margin to Model: Reimagining Higher Education for Justice-Impacted Students”

Our hope for the result of this project is that it will inform future studies. Our hope for these future studies is that we can find evidence to support a change in sodium regulation. Switching from total sodium intake (the current regulation) to sodium density (sodium intake per calorie). Sodium density may be a betterContinue reading “Kate Everett: What The Future Holds!”

As I’m finishing collecting data for my IDEA Grant project, I’m thinking about its potential impact. As a reminder, I’m studying the effect of changing the rate and depth of breathing while maintaining the same total ventilation per minute, during an exaggerated breathing test. Originally I was going to be examining the effect of thisContinue reading “Sequoia Ernst: Moving Toward and Beyond the President’s Showcase”

The majority of my workload for the first half of July was spent working towards IRB approval for my project. This was a fun challenge as I got to experience a taste of how this process works in the real-world. Though it was confusing and stressful at times, I obtained approval to begin the conductionContinue reading “Annie English: Data Collection and Next Steps: Honor’s Thesis on Perceptions of Juvenile Crime”

The research that Amber and I spent the last few months on has the potential to revolutionize the insurance industry. Our models could significantly speed up damage assessment after disaster events and even improve the everyday assessment experience by eliminating the need for a physical assessor to visit a homeowner’s residence. While we’re making incrementalContinue reading “Jas Chawla: Drone Damage Assessment”

As the pieces that make my body of work finally come together, I find it useful to return to the heart of my research as well as the artists and writers who inspired me in the first place. In her 2016 book Staying With the Trouble, author Donna Haraway emphasizes the importance of creativity andContinue reading “Approaching Completion and Looking Forward: Conversations in Art, Technology, and Wildlife”

My time spent on this IDEA Grant project has altered how I perceive myself as a student, researcher, and just an individual wanting to leave a meaningful impact on the world around me. The most exciting part of this project has been connecting with industry professionals at AON, who introduced us to DroneDeploy and accessContinue reading “Amber Losciale: Modernizing Disaster Response Through Drones and AI”

Hello again, and thank you for following along on my research journey! I’m excited to share some updates on my study exploring the sleep quality of postmenopausal women. After months of planning and preparation, we’ve finally reached the data collection phase. So far, we’ve successfully recruited four women into the study, and they are currentlyContinue reading “Sleeping Better, Living Better: Why My Research Gives Me Hope”

As a student researcher, I have found deep meaning and purpose in the work I’ve been involved with throughout my undergraduate career. With women’s health research historically underrepresented compared to research on men, my passion for this field has only grown as I’ve come to better understand its direct impact on the lives of women.Continue reading “Exercise, Metabolism, and Menopause: My Role in Women’s Health Research”

Hello again! It’s hard to believe it’s almost the start of a new school year. Summer has gone by fast, but it’s been definitely been productive. Data collection at the clinic continues to go well, and we have even started conducting some preliminary data analysis. We are excited to continue data collection over the courseContinue reading “Claire Sullivan: Waiting With Intention: Bringing Mindfulness to a Free Clinic Waiting Room”

Since my last blog post, I have completed the most exciting part of my IDEA Grant journey, my research trip. I travelled first to Washington, D.C., to visit the History of Computer Cartography and Geographic Information Sciences Archive at the Library of Congress for five days, then to Philadelphia for the Ian McHarg Collection atContinue reading “Flora Domitrovic: My Research Trip and Beginning the Writing Process”

During the month of June, I took a short trip back to my hometown of Orlando to visit my family and got a much-needed break from summer stresses. Visiting family is always a helpful contribution to my artmaking, as I feel more connected to the cultural influences that guide my ideas. I got to catch-upContinue reading “Alex Davidoff: Revisiting Cultural Iconography”

This month has been an eventful one for us. We already have a basic model that can detect damaged windows reasonably well; however, this alone isn’t sufficient to achieve our broader goal of drone-based damage assessment. To move closer to that goal, we decided to revisit the dataset used to train the original model andContinue reading “Jas Chawla: Professional Labelers”

As I reflect on the second month of my project, there is one word that continues to come up in my mind: noise. I have plenty of literature that is guiding my work, a great working relationship with my mentor, but the noise continues to sound loudly through the numbers. I am not speaking aboutContinue reading “Miguel Arceo: Controlling the Noise within the Numbers”

The rehearsal process was where I found the most challenges in this project. The concept, logistics, working with designers, and even running the show itself had their unique hurdles, but rehearsal was the largest part where I was continuously navigating different obstacles. As I mentioned in a previous post, this project operates within a moreContinue reading “Max Allen: Rehearsal is the Hardest Part”

As technology advances, so has the prevalence of 3D printing. The ease of sending a design file to a printer is unrivaled, and the new possibility of creating complex structures is revolutionary compared to age-old construction techniques. However, as humanity innovates, the waste produced by this expansion is unprecedented. The waste products from modern constructionContinue reading “Rameen Ahmad: Pivoting to a More Sustainable Route”