To conclude the fall semester, students from Marymount’s College of Health and Education participated in the University’s first-ever virtual Health Research Day.
Research presentations from 18 students in the Health & Human Performance and Nursing departments were selected and posted to a website to showcase their work to a large audience. Both undergraduate and graduate students of the health professions were encouraged to submit their research for this event.
Health Research Day was originally created in 2015 as a platform for students to display their summer and fall research projects.
“Before it was established in 2015, students didn’t have opportunities during the fall to disseminate their research,” explained Dr. Gwendolyn Francavillo, Associate Professor for Public Health and the Chair of Marymount’s Health and Human Performance department. “We wanted to change that and work collaboratively to facilitate more student research, and then give those students a platform to present their research here at Marymount.”
Through Health Research Day, students are able to conduct research and work closely in class or one-on-one with faculty members to choose a topic and prepare their research presentation during the summer or fall semester. Students’ ideas must be approved by their faculty mentor to be included in the presentations.
This year, the event expanded its participants to include Nursing students for the first time as well. Submitted research included timely topics such as “College Students and Anxiety” by Public Health Education & Promotion graduate student Khulud Alfaki, “Mental Health and Mental Disorders in Adolescents” by Health Sciences undergraduate student Emily Zhang and “Healthcare-acquired infection prevention in the intensive care setting” by Nursing undergraduate student Alyssa Warnecke.
Due to COVID-19, the research that is typically presented in person was instead posted online and shared across the Marymount community. The website was designed by Emma Driscoll, a BS-MS student who is studying for an undergraduate degree in Health Sciences and a master’s degree in Public Health Education & Promotion.
In another first this year, student presentations on the Health Research Day website were also recognized as “outstanding presentations.”
