Major: Kinesiology- Health Sciences
Minor: Biochemistry and Cell Biology
Before attending Rice, I was sure that I wanted to become a physician and applied as a Biology major. However, once I came and heard about the Health Sciences major, I quickly switched to it as a Freshman because of its emphasis on preventing diseases, which made it perfect for my desire to improve health as a future physician. Throughout my coursework in my major and as a Biochemistry and Cell Biology minor, I have increased my passion for combining public health and medicine in my career.
Research has allowed me to enrich my understanding of public health by seeing the principles of my coursework applied to real interventions. Since my junior year, I have been researching with Dr. Teresia O’Connor at the USDA Children’s Nutrition Research Center. Our research focuses on interventions for childhood obesity prevention. My internship and independent research project in the lab focused on the Fit 5 Kids project, a culturally adapted screen-time reduction curriculum for Latinx children in Head Start centers. As an intern, my duties focused on helping the team initialize accelerometers, do simulations of curriculum delivery in Spanish, and data-entry. Visiting the Head Start centers to collect the children’s height and weight was also a joy for me because I had the opportunity to engage with the children. In my independent research, I analyzed process evaluations by creating a standardized scoring method to assess the fidelity of the program’s delivery.
Currently, I am working remotely on a survey for the same lab in collaboration with a group of pediatricians at Texas Children’s Hospital to develop a survey to assess telemedicine and access to medical care during the COVID-19 pandemic. I have enjoyed learning about the process of developing the survey to address social determinants of health, creating the surveys using a database, assisting with Spanish translations, and assisting with the logistics of data entry and survey distribution.
Outside of the lab, I enjoy creating art, specifically portraits and oil painting. I have served on the executive board of Rice Art Club since freshman year and my artwork is currently on display in the Rice Memorial Center. I also enjoy doing yoga, meditation, and volunteering to make cards for people suffering from terminal health conditions.
In the future, I aim to continue researching in this field and attend medical school to obtain a combined MD and MPH degree, to continue pursuing my passion for treating patients through medicine and public health.