CPERL Bids Farewell to Ashley and Annika

Introduction

Our team bids farewell to two members, Ashley and Annika, who have contributed to our lab's scope of work in valuable ways while completing their summer internships. Ashley, an honors undergraduate student majoring in neuroscience and pursuing minors in nutrition and finance, was engaged in part of our NSF project to automate the classification of a subset of PEM data to refine an application under development. One of Ashley's major contributions included creating and piloting a novel protocol for enhancing the manual classification of these data, that Yebin will pick up and carry forward as part of her first year with us. Annika, an E-OTD student at Rush University, assisted with the upgrades to the cultural adaptations of the YC-PEM and created a video knowledge translation (KT) product highlighting the cultural adaptation process. Annika's dedication and her thoughtful, collaborative approach led to completing multiple upgraded culturally adapted YC-PEM versions, earning acknowledgment on a poster presentation and lead authorship for a KT video about that work, and innovative materials to retain study subjects and onboard future lab members to retain them too.

Mary shares: Ashley brought an impressive amount of discipline and drive to our lab this summer, making it so easy to pursue scientific innovation at a more rapid pace than we have often done before. We so enjoyed her willingness to translate her learning from another rigorous research experience on campus to design a clinically relevant protocol with us. As an aspiring health care professional in our GPPA program, I so appreciated being able to have enriching conversations in lab about the clinical value of pursuing this protocol with an eye on potentially strengthening downstream PEM and related healthcare applications. As an accomplished athlete and currently on our powerlifting team, I also appreciated being able to seek her mentorship as a parent. I can hardly wait to see what Ashley accomplishes next.

Lily shares: It has been such a meaningful experience to co-mentor and work alongside Annika this summer. Her tenacity, insight, and determination to dive into the work at lab together was energizing and motivating. Annika's drive and commitment to our work shined through in the time and effort she put in on the upgraded culturally adapted versions of the YC-PEM. She always came ready to participate in our lab meetings and meaningfully contribute to our discussions. She will truly be missed!