SPHHS Students Named 2024 CRF Undergraduate Student Research Award Winners
The awards support their research efforts and assist them in presenting their findings at professional meetings.
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The Center for Research on Families (CRF) at UMass Amherst has selected six SPHHS undergraduate students among its twenty-two 2024 undergraduate student research award recipients. Since its inception in 2010, the Student Research Awards program has awarded close to $500,000 to 224 students in support of their research efforts and assisted them in presenting their findings at professional meetings and conferences throughout the world.
The SPHHS award recipients are:
- Kaela Leary (Public Health Sciences)
- Rudy Lucier (Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences)
- Sanjana Ravikumar (Public Health Sciences)
- Mia Tittmann (Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences)
- Caroline Tran (Public Health Sciences)
- Virginia Walker (Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences)
Kaela Leary is an undergraduate student majoring in Public Health Sciences and Psychology. Under the mentorship of her advisor, Associate Dean Gloria DiFulvio, her research broadly focuses on the Village to Village Network, a group of non-profit organizations whose mission is to provide an accessible means of aging in place for the older population. Her Honors Thesis will examine the Massachusetts Village Network to identify its structures of success as well as its gaps and address how to increase sustainability and accessibility of this aging in place model.
Rudy Lucier is a junior SLHS and Communications student interested in the intersection of bilingualism and autism. Interacting with the local community through Assistant Professor Megan Gross’s Bilingual Language Development Lab has been a highlight his time at UMass, and has shaped his values entering the Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences field.
Sanjana Ravikumar is a senior undergraduate student at UMass pursuing a degree in Public Health Sciences. Under the mentorship of Associate Professor and Chair of Health Promotion and Policy Sarah Goff, her research focuses on child abuse and neglect laws pertaining to women with opioid use disorders. Her thesis will focus on the benefits, pitfalls, and proposed implementation of bill H.4392 currently on the MA state floor and compare this legislation to similar laws that exist in other states. She is also interested in the broader intended and unintended effects of punitive laws on women and birthing people with substance use disorders, and the communities of women that may disproportionately experience them.
Mia Tittmann is an undergraduate studying Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. Under the guidance of her advisor, senior lecturer Ashley Woodman (psychology), her current research is focused on autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Her honors thesis will address the well-being of parents of autistic children, specifically parents who identify as a racial/ethnic minority. These well-being measurements will range from stress levels, sense of community, sense of support, etc. Through a systematic literature review, she will conclude what the current research has to say about these parent outcomes. She hopes to highlight where future research is heading, what is important to these parents, how to improve these outcomes, and finally what best practices should include. She plans to attend graduate school to become a licensed speech-language pathologist and continue doing research on the intersection of ASD, race/ethnicity, and family dynamics.
Caroline Tran is a senior at the Commonwealth Honors College pursuing a dual degree in Microbiology and Public Health Sciences on the pre-medical track. Her current research in the Moove and Snooze Lab under the mentorship of Assistant Professor of Kinesiology Christine St. Laurent for her Honors Thesis aims to identify facilitators, barriers, knowledge, and current caregiving practices related to child physical activity and sleep in Western Massachusetts family/home-based childcare settings. This study's findings will inform the development of an intervention to promote child physical activity and sleep in family/home-based childcare settings. Her research project is titled, “Family Childcare Assessment of Resources, Education, and Support (CARE) for Physical Activity and Sleep Study”.
Virginia Walker is an undergraduate major in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, and she is also in the Developmental Disabilities and Human Services program. Under the mentorship of Assistant Professor Megan Gross in the Bilingual Language Development Lab, her current research is focused on learning what it is like to raise a neurodivergent child within the Hispanic community and seeing what factors affect the services offered. Her research will examine the access to bilingual services provided through the difference of quality of services given to verbal and non-verbal neurodivergent children, along with the quantity of services offered based on location, with the use of surveys and interviews with Hispanic parents of autistic children with a range of verbal ability.