More than 50 St. Joseph’s University, New York students presented their undergraduate research during the annual Student Research Symposium events.
Undergraduate students at the University’s Long Island Campus presented on a range of academic disciplines Saturday, April 20. Brooklyn’s event, held May 1, saw students do the same.
Both groups shared their research with classmates, faculty, staff, friends and family in the form of posters, presentations and art exhibits.
Long Island Campus’ Keynote speaker Noële Certain ’12, Ph.D., discussed “Finding (Her) Action Potential” through research — a journey that began for her in St. Joseph’s biology department.
“It’s okay to pivot,” said Certain, who is now completing a postdoc at Yale University, where she is studying the cholinergic system and Alzheimer’s disease. “It’s okay to not have your dream job in mind in the first place and just to explore and experience. And that’s why you guys are here today.”
St. Joseph’s Supporting Students Through SURF
Caroline Kocher, a senior psychology major from the Brooklyn Campus, received the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship last year. She presented on her SURF finding’s at the Long Island Campus’ Student Research Symposium, discussing her topic “The Interaction Between Depression and Treatment in Individuals with HIV.”
Kocher also presented at the Brooklyn symposium, sharing her thesis research, “Exploring the Relationship Between Stigma and Substance Uce in Sexual Gender Minorities.”
“In order to know what questions I wanted to be asking, I had to do a lot of background searching, collecting information about what research was already out there,” Kocher said of her SURF project, which she worked on with faculty mentor Anna Egbert, Ph.D.
Through her research, she was able to survey people from all 50 states, collecting valuable data that indicated HIV positive individuals were more likely to experience comorbidity but less likely to experience depression.
“I’m very grateful to St. Joe’s for their funding of my research thus far,” said Kocher, who has since collaborated on an article about the research, created a manuscript based on her findings and presented at a number of conferences.
Brooklyn Campus psychology major Luisa Bianco’s examined the effects of longterm separation from loved ones in her poster, “I Can’t Go On Without You: How Does the Separation Between Close Friends and Romantic Partners Impact Death-Thought Accessibility?”
“The project was inspired by the impact of the pandemic, focusing on care management theory in relation to experiences of separation and isolation during COVID-19,” she said.
Student Luisa Bianco Explains Her Research
In her research, she explored how separation from friends and partners influence thoughts about death. She examined how individuals reached death-related thinking based on different relationship conditions. She told OnCampus that she observed that “responses were equal between romantic partners and best friends, indicating equal value placed on these relationships.”
Snapshots from the Long Island Research Symposium
Photos from the Brooklyn Campus Research Symposium
