Virtual Talks

Existential mattering, or the extent to which one feels they have worth, can have significant implications for an individual’s well-being. One population that may be at a greater risk of suffering from low perceptions of mattering are foster children. This case study of four former foster children used semi-structured interviews to investigate how various aspects of their experience in the foster care system shaped their perception of mattering, both during their time as a foster youth and in their present lives. Protective and corrosive factors in shaping participants' sense of mattering were identified. Corrosive factors included placement instability, insecure attachment, unfulfilled belonging, and lack of relational permanency, while the presence of relational permanency was found to be a protective factor. In former foster youths’ present life, protective factors included continued family support and group belonging outside of the family, while corrosive factors primarily consisted of the lack of close friendships. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Committee on Grants Program.

Project Mentor:  Professor Michael Penn, Department of Psychology

Historically, public health implementations have been crucial to the success of communities around the globe. What kinds of documentation is provided to public health professionals, and even the public? I traveled to London to examine the Wellcome Collection Library and interview experts in the field about various examples of records that were kept in the past in order to help modern populations understand the importance of having a strong public health system. The research I have completed while abroad will be consolidated into a single podcast episode. This project was supported by funding from F&M's John Marshall Fellows Program.

Project Mentor:  Professor Nicholas Bonneau, Department of History and the Public Health Program

Research has established that adults remember animates (i.e., living things) more robustly than inanimates (i.e., non-living objects), which is known as the ‘animacy effect’ (Bonin et al., 2015). One explanatory theory is that humans have evolved to selectively attend to and recall animates because they are more relevant to humans’ survival (Bonin et al., 2015), and thus, the animacy effect would be early developing; however, there is a lack of research on the animacy effect among children. Additionally, because Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by different patterns of attention to social stimuli, the impact of the animacy effect might present differently. The current study examines the animacy effect across children and adults in order to explore the developmental trajectory of this phenomenon, while also investigating potential differences between individuals with ASD and typically-developing populations. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Committee on Grants Program.

Project Mentor:  Professor Lauren Howard, Department of Psychology

Down syndrome (DS) is a genetic disorder caused by three copies of chromosome 21 in humans. I focused on hematopoietic abnormalities by studying mice that are a genetic model for DS, called Dp(16)1Yey or Dp+. Previous research has shown that 10% of DS infants are diagnosed with transient myeloproliferative disorder (TMD), which is caused by perturbed hematopoiesis increasing megakaryocyte cells in the blood. While TMD usually disappears within three months of birth, it can be lethal or progress to acute megakaryoblastic leukemia. We hypothesize that Dp+ mice will have an increased level of megakaryocyte precursor cells as compared to euploid counterparts. Since spleens are centers of hematopoiesis in mice, they can be used to study the immune system via flow cytometry using three different markers. These investigations may clarify a hematopoietic etiology for Dp+ mice that experience a failure to thrive by three months. This project was supported by funding from F&M's Committee on Grants Program.

Project Mentor:  Professor Clara Moore, Department of Biology