In January, the Honors College hosted their 9th Annual Diversity Research Showcase (DRS) where roughly 40 undergraduates participated in poster and oral presentations across research topics with peers, faculty, and staff in a supportive and constructive atmosphere. This year, several LBC students participated, and three received awards!
Sullivan Whiting, a third-year LBC student majoring in human biology, won fifth place in the Poster Presentation category for their project Community-Building Among Transgender and Gender-Diverse Medical Students and Residents with the help of LBC faculty mentor Andrea Kelley.
Two students won awards in the Oral Presentation category: Alexandra Beck and Rachel Zhai.
Beck, a third-year student majoring in neuroscience and public policy at Lyman Briggs College, the Honors College, and the College of Social Science, won second place for their presentation Birth and Barriers: Examining Perinatal Mental Health and Opioid Crisis and Treatment Availability with the help of research mentor Claire Margerison.
Zhai is a second-year student majoring in neuroscience and English in the Honors College, Lyman Briggs College, and the College of Arts and Letters. Assisted by research mentor Jungmin Kwon, their presentation, Asian American Youth Co-Designing Heritage Language Workshops for Immigrant Families: A Community-Based Participatory Research Study, tied for third place in the Oral Presentation category.
“Diversity research helps us better understand the realities of our communities and the systems that shape them,” says Erika Crews, the main organizer of the showcase and director of student success and community engagement at the Honors College. “Especially now, funding this work is a meaningful investment in rigorous scholarship that informs practice and contributes to more equitable outcomes.”
Congratulations to every student who participated in the Diversity Research Showcase.
This article is adapted from the original article by Sloane Barlow, posted by the MSU Honors College.