GSA and Interdisciplinary Perspectives

GSA and Interdisciplinary Perspectives

By Managing Editor Felicia Whatley

Friday May 1 Graduate Student Assembly hosted Interdisciplinary Perspectives, a Graduate Student Research Showcase where graduate students proudly presented their research work on posters in the Campus Center Terrace.

“I what I did my clinical placement offering HIV testing. People ask why do I need to get tested? But really it is providers that are shy in Massachusetts. It is the providers that resist not the patients,” said Brianne R. Fitzgerald, RN, MPH graduating Masters in Nursing.

There were graduating grad students and some with a few more years to go that participated in the project. Nursing is a growing field, so there were a couple showcasing their work.

Gail Alexander, an RN working on her Master of Nursing and Mary Sue Howlett, a Family Nurse Practitioner, also working on her Master of Nursing spoke about their resuscitation project.

“We looked at what policies an intensive care unit has for resuscitation and if the family is allowed to be with them or not. There is psychological interference. It makes it hard to have a protective distance and come back each day and do our job.” said Howlett.

A Ph.D. student Stacy A. Doner did ground braking work in the biology field. She actually partook in the discovery of 50 new species found deep in the ocean in Antarctica and the Gulf of Mexico.

“I go out to sea and send equipment down. It is too deep for a human to survive, about a mile down. They are tiny polyheeds, small as the white of your fingernail. You need a microscope to see them,” said Doner.

She said some of these creatures function like earthworms and provide food for other fish. Through her research she is learning more about the deep sea and our oceans.