Professors continually perform research, but there are usually names trailing behind the faculty member on those publications belonging to students.
Karen Yu, a senior in psychology, has been a member of a research team studying social aspects behind type 1 diabetes. After working on the research for a year, she was able publish her work and will present it this weekend at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in Wisconsin.
The U is taking 34 students to the conference this year through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program.
The program sponsored Yu for two semesters. She joined Cynthia Berg, a professor in the department of psychology, midway into a five-year research project. The research examines how children with type 1 diabetes transition successfully into adult life, because it is a vulnerable time, Berg said.
She said Yu has added to the study, focusing on how the kids’ friendships can play a vital role in managing diabetes. Observing families from lower socioeconomic situations, she also added a new perspective.
“Yu is our go-to for anything. She helps out a lot,” Berg said.
Yu has had the full research experience. She has recruited participants, run tests and collected and analyzed data. Some of the data has been published, which makes the countless hours of work worth it.
“It’s awesome. I feel very accomplished,” Yu said. “I learned I can take on grad school and research can be fun, especially when you see your results published.”
As an undergraduate, she feels as if she has already contributed to the community of scholars and other people who work in this field. Working with the other research assistants, graduate students and Berg, Yu learned to observe correlations and discover the reasons behind them. Finding those surprising factors on her own has been her favorite part of research, she said.
As a team so far, they discovered that parents are important in how children best deal with type 1 diabetes. Berg said they do better when parents are more involved, especially the fathers, whose involvement in studies like this have been limited.
In addition to learning research techniques, Yu has been introduced to how social aspects affect physical and mental illnesses.
“In this society, in our country, whenever you have an illness, people just prescribe medicine, so you have more and more pills in your pocket every day, but they don’t necessarily treat you. They don’t necessarily help you get better. The social support is a very big part that might benefit people,” she said.
Physicians educate the afflicted child on how to deal with their diabetes, while their peers are not informed and might make fun of them. Thus, Yu said kids with diabetes might be less likely to check their insulin levels or inform someone that their blood glucose levels are low and that they need assistance.
“We really should be focusing on the people around the patient as well as the patient themselves,” she said.
Yu hopes to use what she has studied as an undergraduate student to study suicide prevention through interpersonal relationships and stress. She will continue with the research project with Berg and other students.