Author: Hoffmann, Jessamy

2014 Rowe Scholar: Kewa Jiang

Posted on July 14, 2014December 16, 2014 by Hoffmann, Jessamy

Kewa Jiang is originally from Shenzhen, China, but after moving to the US four and a half years ago, she now hails from Glastonbury, CT and graduated from Glastonbury High School. She is a molecular and cell biology major who is also working on minors in chemistry and digital arts. While she enjoys all areas of science, she’s particularly interested in immunology, virology, and parasitology. She also likes drawing on the computer, watching anime with friends, and the card game Dominion. Kewa has volunteered at UConn Health as a research assistant in the psychiatry department, gaining clinical as well as practical experience coordinating events and interviewing people in a professional manner. She’s currently working in Dr. Verardi’s lab in the pathobiology department at Storrs, which she says is challenging but which has given her insight about what to expect from her chosen career path of physician-scientist. Kewa is also a member of the UConn Taekwondo team.

2014 Rowe Scholar: Abigail Colburn

Posted on July 14, 2014December 16, 2014 by Hoffmann, Jessamy

Abigail Colburn is an allied health major with minors in biology and molecular and cell biology. She plans to go to medical school and has worked toward this goal as a mobility volunteer at Hartford Hospital, where she has had experience interacting with patients and nurses. She has also interned at the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine, where she created webinars for health and mental health care professionals. Hailing from South Windsor, CT, Abigail is a graduate of South Windsor High School and has been a runner her whole life. This summer she ran her first half marathon.

2014 Rowe Scholar: Sharon Cherian

Posted on July 14, 2014December 16, 2014 by Hoffmann, Jessamy

Sharon Cherian has been doing Indian classical dance since she was six years old and plans to continue dancing at UConn. While here she’ll also be majoring in chemistry and perhaps psychology while following a pre-med track of study to prepare for medical school and a future as a doctor. A resident of West Hartford, CT, Sharon graduated from Conard High School and volunteered for three years at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford. While at St. Francis, Sharon assisted nurses and patients in the OBGYN/post-delivery unit. She enjoyed working with the people and feels that she learned a lot about the obstetrics and gynecology field.

2014 Rowe Scholar: Omar Allam

Posted on July 14, 2014April 15, 2015 by Hoffmann, Jessamy

Omar Allam is a chemistry major from Mansfield, CT. A graduate of Glastonbury High School, he loves to cook and works part-time as an assistant chef at a Mediterranean restaurant where he specializes in baklava. He also volunteers as an EMT, which he feels provides an exhilarating perspective on medicine. Omar had the unique opportunity to observe the first TAVR (Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement) surgery in Connecticut, which occurred when he shadowed and conducted research with Dr. David Underhill, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Hartford Hospital.

2014 Rowe Scholar: Jennifer Akosa

Posted on July 14, 2014December 16, 2014 by Hoffmann, Jessamy

Jennifer Akosa is from Newington, CT but has close ties to Nigeria, where her parents lived up until two years before she was born. A pre-pharmacy major and graduate of Newington High School, Jennifer enjoys playing the outside hitter and defensive specialist positions in volleyball. She has taken part in the HCOP Mini-Medical/Dental High School Program, which provided her with the opportunity to listen to lectures on topics such as pharmacology, cardiology, and oncology, and she has worked at UConn Health as a research apprentice, studying how proteins such as E-cadherin and Actin manipulate cell direction and adhesion. She has also volunteered at the Newington Veterans’ Hospital in urgent care and cardiology.

Rowe Researcher: Assessing the 2012 NHANES Chemosensory Component

Posted on January 10, 2014July 28, 2014 by Hoffmann, Jessamy

Summer-Fall 2013: Assessing the Validity and Reliability of the 2012 NHANES Chemosensory Component

By Mallory Honda, Shristi Rawal, Dr. Valerie Duffy

In 2012, the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) added a new chemosensory component to assess the prevalence of taste and smell disorders at a national level. NHANES is a nationally-representative survey of the U.S. population based on questionnaires and measures taken at mobile examination centers (MECs). The chemosensory component includes collection of self-reported data as well as taste and smell assessments carried out by researchers. Because the sense of taste is redundant (carried by many cranial nerves), reported loss of taste is rare and often actually due to decreased sense of smell which is much more liable to damage through aging, injury, or infection. Continue reading →

Rowe Researcher: Premenstrual Syndrome in Minority Women

Posted on January 10, 2014January 10, 2014 by Hoffmann, Jessamy

Fall 2012-Spring 2014: An Exploratory Pilot of Factors Associated with Premenstrual Syndrome in Minority Women

By Mallory Perry; Michelle Judge, PhD, RD; Deborah D. McDonald, PhD, RN

Research evidence is limited in relation to the difference between minority populations and White Americans in regards to premenstrual syndrome (PMS) symptoms. Though no research has been done directly on PMS variances, studies on amount and duration of menstrual cycles do show that there is a significant difference between ethnic groups. The aims for this research are to explore factors associated with PMS in minority women and to compare PMS symptom response of minority and nonminority women to diet supplementation with omega-3 fatty acids. Continue reading →

2013 Rowe Scholar: Donna Aranibar

Posted on December 18, 2013February 26, 2014 by Hoffmann, Jessamy

Donna Aranibar is originally from Lima, Peru though she’s lived for the past 10 years in Glastonbury, CT where she graduated from Glastonbury High School. She will be attending UConn in the fall as a biology and anthropology major. Donna has been involved in a variety of UConn’s Health Career Opportunity Programs (HCOP), including Jumpstart, Junior Doctors Academy, Senior Doctors Academy, and the Pre-College Enrichment Program. Each program renewed and increased her interest in medicine. This past year, Donna competed in the Connecticut Science & Engineering Fair, where she was recognized as a first honors finalist and won a special award from the University of Connecticut’s Physics department.

2013 Rowe Scholar: Alexis Oseiwusu

Posted on December 18, 2013December 18, 2013 by Hoffmann, Jessamy

Alexis Oseiwusu’s family is originally from Ghana, West Africa. She was born in Inglewood, CA and moved to Danbury, CT when she was in the sixth grade. While Alexis studied at Danbury High School, her mother returned to school for a degree in nursing. This piqued Alexis’s interest in the health fields, which she pursued further by taking part in UConn’s Health Career Opportunity Programs’ (HCOP) Mini-Medical/Dental School, where she listened to different types of physicians and surgeons lecture about their fields. She shadowed on the Labor and Delivery floor of Danbury Hospital, witnessing three Cesarean sections and assisting as a baby nurse in the NICU. While at Danbury Hospital, Alexis took part in research on Kangaroo Care, a skin-to-skin method of care between an infant and parent. Her long-term goal is to be a neonatal nurse practitioner.

2013 Rowe Scholar: Fariya Naz

Posted on December 18, 2013 by Hoffmann, Jessamy

Fariya Naz graduated with high honors from Danbury High School. Though her early childhood was spent in Pakistan, she moved to Danbury, CT at the age of eight. At Danbury Hospital where Fariya volunteered in the pharmacy department and interned for the oncology department, she learned that the medical field was right for her. Pursuing what she considers to be one of the most fascinating fields of modern science, Fariya is majoring in psychology and minoring in cognitive science. More specifically, she is drawn to clinical psychology and is currently studying electrophysiology in patients with schizophrenia in Professor Chen’s lab.