Students in the News

Students in the News

By Karene Booker
Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle, February 16, 2012

Big Red Buddies volunteer, Michael Verini

Michael Verini '14 works with children at the Cornell Child Care Center as part of the Big Red Buddies program. Photo by Mark Vorreuter

Not everyone gets to be a prince for an afternoon, but Emilie Stewart '14 did as a volunteer for Big Red Buddies. The new program places Cornell students at the Cornell Child Care Center to read to and play with the children -- and to learn and be inspired.

Stewart, a human development major in the College of Human Ecology, explained that one afternoon when she came in, the children did not want story time. Instead they headed for the dress-up corner. "I spent my entire afternoon pretending to be a prince and chasing the kids around on my imaginary horse," she said. "The spirit and enthusiasm of these children reminded me of the importance of doing things just because they bring you happiness."

Someday, she said, "the firsthand experiences that I have had with children during their educational process will enable me to better develop early childhood programs within low-income communities."

Human development major Monique Hall '14 volunteers with infants, which provides her with a close-up view of child development. "I saw one of the babies go from just being able to lie on her back to being able to roll over and sit up on her own. Another went from babbling to saying words. Others begin to walk and feed themselves," she said. "It's just so amazing to watch them grow."

The program was started last semester by Elizabeth Stilwell, lecturer and teaching liaison in the Department of Human Development. She got the idea for the program from students who observe children at the center to fulfill course requirements. "Observing was interesting, but these students wanted to spend time interacting with children," Stilwell said.

The center's director, Patty Sinclair, welcomed the idea. Stilwell and the center's leaders set about building the program. With funding from the Department of Human Development's undergraduate education committee, Stilwell hired a student coordinator, Michael Verini '14, a human development major who not only volunteers at the center but also recruits, trains and schedules the other student volunteers.

This past fall, the program had about 35 students spending one to two hours per week with children. "Because of the large number of applicants, we plan on expanding to 50 volunteers this spring," said Verini. "Ultimately, we hope to extend Big Red Buddies to include off-campus, community-based child care programs to increase the diversity of settings."

The program offers a way to thank the center for the undergraduate education and research opportunities that it provides to the College of Human Ecology, Stilwell noted.

While the students benefit from the play time, the children do too, Sinclair said.

"Whether the students are comforting a sleepy baby, helping a toddler express herself or reading a preschool child his favorite book, they are making a big impact in these young children's lives."

Karene Booker is extension support specialist in the Department of Human Development.

By Karene Booker

Anna Zhu practices teaching an experimental curriculum

Nine undergraduate students from the College of Human Ecology serving as extension interns spent their summer engaged in everything from teaching teens how to make better decisions to playing games with toddlers in order to answer key child development questions. Four of the internships were led by faculty in the department of human development.

The interns worked with faculty and community collaborators, particularly Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) associations, on creative projects that embody the college’s research, education and outreach missions and benefit communities throughout New York State. “CCE internships provide excellent opportunities for undergraduate students to learn first-hand about the ways research, education, and outreach complement each other,” said Jennifer Tiffany, associate director for extension and outreach in the College of Human Ecology.

Distenfeld poster

Shelby Distenfeld's presentation poster

Human development major Shelby Distenfeld ’13, traveled to Tioga and Seneca counties to recruit rural and low-income children for a study about how factors such as income and parenting influence children’s concept of choice. The project, under the direction of Tamar Kushnir, assistant professor of human development, “was very rewarding because I was able to play a role in many aspects of research from administrative duties and participant recruitment to collecting data,” Distenfeld said. “The opportunity to work with the mothers and children and see first-hand the differences in development among the children was eye opening.”

“An important lesson I learned is how research is actually conducted and how to successfully run a research project,” said Hemavattie Ramtahal ‘13. As a human development major, she dedicated her summer to investigating the relationship between poverty, emotion, and cognitive development in young children with Marianella Casasola, associate professor of human development. Ramtahal worked in Tompkins, Cortland, and Yates counties recruiting families for the study, conducted the experimental tasks or “baby games” with the children, trained other research assistants and analyzed data.

“My burning curiosity about risky decision making started in high school,” said Anna Zhu ’14.  She wondered why teens make bad choices that jeopardize their health, future, or lives, and how to help them. A Human Biology, Health & Society major, she tackled these questions as part of her internship with Valerie Reyna, professor of human development. Zhu taught the experimental risk reduction curriculum in CCE’s 4-H Career Exploration program, prepared data for analysis, and worked with local partners and extension staff in New York City and Broome counties to administer follow-up surveys. “From this experience,” she said “I’ve already gained valuable skills in teaching, statistical analysis, and social science research – tools I expect to use in my career in public health.”

Sarah Dephtereos ’13 spent her summer exploring how 4-H educators use research. A policy analysis and management major, she worked with Steve Hamilton, human development professor and associate director for youth development at the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research, to review the literature on research utilization and draft a guide to youth development websites for 4-H educators. Her review identified common problems practitioners experience with accessing research. “I saw these issues reflected in the youth development websites I assessed,” Dephtereos said.”

Other extension internships in the college included teaching new immigrants ways to maintain a healthy diet, creating gardens at low-income schools, developing a high tech fabric class for girls, piloting nutrition and parenting education program, and researching child custody decisions in low-income families.

Information for faculty about applying for the 2012 CCE internship program will be available in December.

Karene Booker is an extension support specialist in the department of human development.

Related websites:
Jennifer Tiffany:
CCE Summer Internship Program

  
By Rachel Sumner

“Maybe there are just too many of us trying to send messages with our minds at the same time,” suggested one student after our group’s third unsuccessful attempt to demonstrate the existence of Extrasensory perception (ESP). “That’s a great hypothesis,” I remarked, “How could we test that?”

This foray into the paranormal was part of a workshop on Thinking Like a Scientist, offered at the 4-H Career Explorations Conference. Thinking Like a Scientist, developed by Wendy M. Williams, professor in the department of human development, is an extension education program designed to help kids explore the science behind topics that interest them, such as ESP, lying, and self-esteem. Students are encouraged to develop hypotheses, seek out facts instead of opinions, consider previous research, and think about how science and scientific findings are related to real-world situations. So many science courses focus on content. The focus of this program is the process of scientific inquiry itself.

During one lesson about the science of smiling, students investigated this everyday behavior from a scientific perspective. With a level of creativity and curiosity that I’d come to expect from them after our two days in the classroom, they brainstormed potential support for a number of hypotheses about gender differences in smiling. Their suggestions ranged from “Girls have more to worry about and guys don’t really take things seriously,” to “Girls get to sleep in more and…they watch more soap operas, no offense.” Students were drawing on their own experience of the world and thinking about how or why their experience might be similar to or different from a broader pattern of experience that might be revealed by science and research.

Teaching the Thinking Like a Scientist course was a wonderful chance for me to share my enthusiasm for the rigors of research with these young students. Watching them struggle through defining a term or refining each other’s ideas for future research reminded me of my own introduction to science in college. “Thinking like a scientist” has since become the way I think about pretty much everything and has set me on the trajectory that led me here, one year into a PhD program in Human Development. My advisors, Wendy M. Williams, Stephen Ceci, and Steven Hamilton, continue to nourish and broaden my enthusiasm for exploring the world and solving problems by using research and scientific process.

Rachel Sumner is pursuing her PhD in Human Development in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University. She is interested in conducting research on gender and racial achievement gaps in education and ways in which those disparities can be eliminated.


By Anna Zhu

My burning curiosity about risky decision making started in high school.  I witnessed some of my brightest friends make bad choices, slack off in school, and lose their way. I wondered, why do teens make these decisions that jeopardize their health, future, or lives, and how can we help them? I’m tackling these questions as part of an internship with Dr. Valerie Reyna, professor in the department of human development, College of Human Ecology.

One month into the internship, I taught a workshop on Reducing the Risk in Adolescence at the 4-H Career Explorations Conference, along with other members of Dr. Reyna’s lab. We gave the students a tour of our lab, offered advice on how to get involved in research and in college, and discussed the critical thinking and commitment involved in planning and carrying out a good research study.

The students in our workshop got to see social science research in action. We randomly assigned each student to one of two curricula being studied in Reyna’s lab – EatFit, a program promoting healthy eating and fitness or the Gist-Enhanced Reducing the Risk (RTRgist), a sexual health program based on Reyna’s research on adolescent memory and decision making. According to this research, when teens focus on details and statistics – a common feature of traditional health classes – they are more likely to make risky choices compared to when they focus on the overall meaning or “gist” of a situation.

As one of the EatFit teachers, I found the 4-H students incredibly enthusiastic about the hands-on activities. For example, students were shocked when we demonstrated exactly how many tablespoons of sugar are in a bottle of soda. The material we taught in both the RTRgist and Eatfit classes seemed to make a strong impression, but without further research, the results would be purely anecdotal. To test the effectiveness of the classes, the research team will conduct follow-up surveys with the students over the next 12 months and analyze results to identify changes in risky behaviors.

It’s exciting to look at the data analyses and realize that the work we do with teens can positively affect their behavior and lifestyle! I hope that one day health classes around the nation will benefit from the lessons we’re learning about how teens make decisions.

From this experience, I’ve already gained valuable skills in teaching, statistical analysis, and social science research – tools I expect to use in my career in public health. I’m excited to continue working with Dr. Reyna to increase my knowledge of risky decision making in adolescents.

Anna Zhu, ‘14, is a Human Biology, Health & Society major in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University. This summer she is participating in an extension internship with Dr. Valerie Reyna sponsored by Cornell Cooperative Extension.

 

Reyna Lab

Reyna Lab 2011

Students from Valerie Reyna’s Laboratory for Rational Decision Making have been working in collaboration with New Roots Charter School in Ithaca as well as Cooperative Extension offices in New York City and Broome County to offer innovative curricula to teens.

The goal of the project is to reduce adolescent risk taking by providing effective interventions in the areas of sexual health as well as nutrition and fitness, while also gathering research data to improve the interventions. By working with Cornell Cooperative Extension, the team is assessing how best to move this program beyond the laboratory team and into the community.

The project is proving rewarding, not only for the youth who are taking the classes, but for the Cornell students involved in the research and teaching.

“Teaching health education to teenagers has also helped cement my interest in pursuing adolescent medicine as a career,” said Claire Lyons, ’12. Graduate student Anna Kharmats added, “the students [at New Roots] inspired me to apply to the New York City Teaching fellowship program to which I have been accepted."

Read more in this newsletter the students created about their activities at New Roots.

See a poster the students created about the Reducing the Risk intervention and work with Cornell Cooperative Extension.

By Karene Booker

Helena HermanHuman development major Helena Herman '11, spent this past summer examining the links between extension systems and translational research initiatives in the US. Under the guidance of Elaine Wethington, Associate Professor of Human Development and Co-Director of the Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center, Herman researched existing translational research and community-based participatory research initiatives throughout the country and looked at their relationships to cooperative extension.

“I was interested in understanding how community engagement might influence the effectiveness and efficiency of translational research,” says Herman.

In keeping with her boundless enthusiasm for the topic, the goals of her project were ambitious. She set out to assess and compare all current translational research initiatives in the country; to examine any collaborative partnerships between translational research initiatives and state extension systems; to understand factors contributing to such collaboration; and to predict the potential for partnerships among non-collaborating initiatives and their respective state extension systems.

As part of the project, she undertook an extensive literature review of translational research and community based participatory research (CBPR), looking at factors important for bringing translational research to communities. She summarized major contributions and conclusions from over 100 articles. She also noted definitions of community-based participatory research and translational research throughout in order to extrapolate key words for each nuanced definition of community-based participatory research and translational research.

“Given the wide spectrum of definitions used for translational research and CBPR, a more unified taxonomy would be extremely useful,” commented Herman.

She synthesized her findings in a paper outlining CBPR methodology and highlighting the contributions of CBPR to research translation. But, she didn’t’ stop there! She went on to catalog all Cooperative Extension offices and translational research initiatives in the country. It turns out that there are one hundred thirty five centers committed to translational research in the US, including both federally- and non- federally- funded initiatives. 

“This census provides an overview of what is currently being done in the field of translational research. It has proven useful to researchers in the College as they consider strategies for strengthening Cornell’s role in bringing translational research to communities in New York,” says Herman.

She found only twelve translational research initiatives (representing 10 states) maintain some sort of collaborative partnership with a state extension system and only two states demonstrated more seamlessly integrated extension and translational initiatives (Kentucky and New Mexico).

Herman created a poster detailing her findings and analyses and presented it at a reception at the Cornell Cooperative Extension Leadership Conference in October 2010. She is currently pursuing an independent study, under Elaine Wethington, to further explore the role of cooperative extension in translational research.

 

Jordan WhitlockIs there a way to diagnosis Alzheimer’s disease before the symptoms start?

That is the question Jordan Whitlock, a senior working with Professor Barbara Lust’s research group, is trying to answer. If an earlier diagnosis were possible, then doctors could target this incurable disease in its beginning stages, prior to the onset of severe mental decline and brain damage. The goal of Whitlock’s research is to show if language dete­rioration can be an indicator of the early stages of Alzheimer’s. She says that the “loftiest ideal of this study is to learn about the progression of Alzheimer’s without any genetic testing.”

Professor Lust’s group uses several language testing methods while conducting this study. Whitlock focuses on a technique called Elicited Imitation, where she creates sentences that slightly vary in the specific part of speech she wishes to examine. Then, she will read these sentences aloud to a subject, who will repeat it back after a few moments. Subconsciously, the subject must reconstruct the sentence in their mind before answering.  Read the full story

 

Thomas E. Fuller-RowellAttending a high-achieving school can increase the social cost of achievement for students of color for allegedly "acting white" among their peers, according to a new study in the November/December issue of Child Development.

Thomas E. Fuller-Rowell '10, HD graduate and now research fellow at the University of Michigan, led researchers at Cornell in analyzing data on more than 100,000 students of black, white, Asian, Native American and Hispanic students in grades 7-12 from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. They compared students' grade point averages with a measure of students' feelings of loneliness, social support, and sense of belonging.

"We already know that social acceptance is one of the primary concerns of adolescence,” said Fuller-Rowell. “If achievement comes at a social cost, there are obviously going to be differences in teenagers' motivation to achieve." Read the full story

Alli Bosserman with resident Yvonne Smith

Alli Bosserman walks through Cayuga Ridge Nursing Home with resident Yvonne Smith.

As part of the Cornell Elderly Partnership (CEP), Alli Bosserman '11, a human development major and gerontology minor, visits Yvonne Smith at Cayuga Ridge Nursing Home near Trumansburg nearly every week and takes her on walks, reads to her and sometimes does her nails. But she's frustrated that she can't do more, such as alleviating her pain or moving her from her wheelchair to bed when she wants to rest.

Because of this, Bosserman wants to earn a master's in nursing and learn the best ways to ease the pain of people receiving long-term care.

"CEP has changed the way I look at life," she said. "It has taught me to look at aging as a healthy, normal and beautiful part of life. We are born with the need for nurture, care and support, and as we age and approach death we return to this state. It's a beautiful process." Read the full article

Lazarus Lynch, a 4H student from Food and Finance High School in New York City was selected as one of four exceptional NY student finalists in the World Food Prize essay contest sponsored by the New York Youth Institute at Cornell University. 

 Lazarus was one of six NYC 4- students from three different clubs participating in the World Food Prize essay competition. Students worked hard all summer gathering research and putting together essays.  Their hard work culminated this fall when they had the opportunity to present their findings to international experts, share their ideas with global leaders and tour Cornell University to meet students working to end hunger and improve food security.

As a finalist, Lazarus attended the Global Youth Institute in Des Moines, Iowa, in October along with Maryse Holly former NYC 4H Program Assistant (and current Cornell Graduate Student).  Alongside 200 outstanding high school students from across the globe, Lazarus had the opportunity to interact with Nobel and World Food Prize Laureates and the more than 600 global leaders attending the World Food Prize’s annual international symposium.  

"During my trip to Iowa last week, Lazarus report in his blog, "issues relating to food insecurity and disadvantages to small share-holder farmers and countless more issues were brought to my attention for the first time."

"I knew I could not have been the only one who was unfamiliar with these crises. It caused me to think about the intolerable degree of ignorance that glazes over the minds of many people today. It made me realize how uninformed people really were on where their food comes from, the lack of distribution of this food and the struggles encountered by those who produce it.”

The 4H program at Cornell Cooperative Extension of NYC is part of the Family and Youth Development program area. It has clubs and outreach to all five boroughs, strengthening youth’s knowledge, leadership skills and community service. 4H trains youth workers to reach community agencies, schools, churches and other group settings.

Listen to an interview with Jackie Davis-Manigaulte, Youth and Family Program Leader, Cornell Cooperative Extension of NYC, and Lazarus Lynch, on NPR's Science Friday.