FWS Student Highlights: Ammara Khursheed

Greetings! My name is Ammara Khursheed, and I am freshman honors college student majoring in Community Health with a minor in Conflict Analysis and Resolution. During the course of this school year, I have had the honor of working with Dr. Seth Kaplan and PhD Student Martin Biskup. I conduct weekly database searches to locate studies for a meta-analysis examining affective experiences inside, and beyond, the workplace. More specifically, we are investigating momentary mood, stress, and meaning at both work and other locations. Working as a research assistant has given me the opportunity to increase my knowledge of industrial/organizational psychology. This position has helped me learn how to manage my time and improve my concentration. It has also increased the capacity with which I am able to conduct scholarly research. This experience has helped me to grow exponentially as a researcher and will benefit me by offering me a firm foundation from which I can spring into research as an honors student and possibly through the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program.

FWS Student Highlights: Naomi Hailemeskel

Since the beginning of the school year, I have had the pleasure to work with Dr. Christine Barthold on The Functional Behavior Assessment project. This research project aims at identifying and addressing the different barriers and problem behaviors that individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities face during employment in the community.

On a weekly basis, I am responsible for a few different tasks. I observe the interviews with the participants and collect treatment integrity data. I also am in charge of organizing, uploading, and inputting all the data collected from the interviews into SPSS and blackboard. Recently, I have also started setting up the app that will be used for the data collection portion during the observations. For this upcoming semester we will begin the actual data collection with direct observations of the Mason LIFE students at their different internships and places of employment.

This opportunity has allowed me to learn so much more about special education and applied behavior analysis therapy. This week I learned more about ABC (antecedent- behavior- consequence) observation, which is a tool, used to further collect information about the events occurring within the environment of the participants.

As a psychology and integrative studies major, the knowledge I am gaining from this position is extremely beneficial. My long-term goal is to become an Occupational Therapist and this research has helped me gain valuable experiences like working directly with students with I/DD and introducing me to ABA therapy that directly complements my future career plans. I look forward to upcoming semester and continuing on this project!

FWS Student Highlights: Bruno Ortega-Toledo

I am working on a global affairs project that examines the relationship between poverty levels and support for environmental norms. My project is two-fold: first, I will be conducting a general survey on poverty levels and environmental values; second, I will be examining two specific countries to use as case-studies, focusing on state-society relations and its role in environmental negotiations. As my mentor, Professor Byunghwan Son has been instrumental in helping me through my project ideas, asking me to elaborate my ideas, all the while providing his expertise in the form of crucial feedback.

My assignments have involved compiling information, searching through academic papers and news headlines for material relevant to his research project. Not being the most familiar with the Southeast Asia region, I’ve learned a lot about the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB), Korean business, and the benefits of trade for this region. China’s regional influence is of huge concern to America’s allies I the region, like South Korea and Japan, so reading about China’s moves toward regional dominance has been very interesting. Being a global affairs major, keeping up to date on events going on around the world is extremely important for my career—working with Professor Son has solidified my understanding of this dynamic region. The skills I’ve gained include efficient methods of searching, effective representation of information, and helpful ways to catalogue data for easy reference. Considering that entry-level positions in my field are assistantships of some kind, I feel that my time with Professor Son is preparing me for any future collaboration I may have, either with another individual, or with a group of researchers. Either way, our exchange of ideas and knowledge excites me about the future prospects of my career.

FWS Student Highlights: Wendy Klein

I am currently assisting Dr. Frankenfeld of the Global and Community Health department, with ongoing research into the Microbiome. The microbiome is defined as the community of bacteria that reside within each person’s biological system. This research is currently investigating the consequence of nutrition and its effect on the microbiome. This is significant because research has shown that the health of a person’s microbiome directly correlates to or has impact on the overall health of that person. Our particular topic is studying the diet of those individuals from south/southeast regions in Asia, and its affect on their overall health. Participants of the study submit questionnaires about their diet and where they have lived, as well as a fecal sample, which are then analyzed in order to directly map out the different populations of bacteria in each individual’s system. The future could hold this as a standard biological blueprint, speaking to the uniqueness of each individual.

On a weekly basis, I enter data into a database known as NSDR, based on the responses recorded on the questionnaires that participants fill out. I am also in charge of scheduling and conducting interviews for research participants who volunteer to be a part of the study, as well as dropping off samples. I am also being introduced to the techniques of data analysis using STATA.

This relates to my long term goals because investigation of the microbiome is something within the realm of biochemistry, my concentration. There is still a large gap between what we know and what we understand about this particular topic that is only beginning to be breached. This is something that I would be very interested in pursuing and my current responsibilities through OSCAR have allowed me to catch a glimpse of what current research on this topic could look like, and it’s very exciting.

FWS Student Highlights: Corina Solorzano

For almost two years now, I have been working with Dr. Singh, a Professor of Global Affairs and Cultural Studies here at Mason, on his research project concerning participation within development projects in the sector of information technology and communications. The work we have been working in since last year has included coding over 200 World Bank Projects, we have since then finished this as of May 2015. Now we have moved on to the next step in order to support our findings we are now comparing our data sets to the Independent Evaluation Group’s (IEG) findings on these same projects. This year, we are working with over 11,000 projects and hope to extract information for these projects in order to further support the results Dr. Singh, myself, and the other research assistants have come up with.

On a weekly basis, I input data into both coding sets we currently have; our World Bank Project coding and now, the IEG findings. Currently, I am inputting IEG data information into our World Bank data in order to make it easier on us when comparing data sets.

One thing I have discovered this week are the barriers researchers go through; there comes a time when research encounter an obstacle and in order to push through it you have to find a solution through various means. A coding scheme was created for us, when we jumped on board, but now I am seeing Dr. Singh come up with another coding scheme for the new data set, so this year has been a completely different experience because I can see how difficult it can be in order to fit all criteria need especially when looking for accuracy.

I am a senior graduating in May of 2016, and I hope to continue working within the field of Global affairs in any aspect of international relations. I have currently applied to George Mason’s Master’s Program and hope to continue my education and also continue having a hand in research.