Robins Award Winners from College

Emily Lund, Graduate Student Researcher of the Year

One of her research topics is interpersonal violence and trauma, particularly as it relates to individuals with disabilities.  She has published papers on:

• Factors that predict interpersonal violence
• How university campuses educate students on sexual violence
• Bullying and peer victimization among elementary-age children with disabilities
• The relation between trauma and later self-injury and suicide in people with disabilities
• The perceived acceptability of suicide for people with disabilities.

Emily’s research on this last topic revealed some extremely important and deeply disturbing information – suicide was seen to be more acceptable for people with disabilities.  And this was the case even when she asked people with disabilities.

Emily’s research is as prolific as it is important.

• She is an author on 46 peer reviewed articles
• She is first author on 16 of these and second author on nine
• In 2015 alone, she published seven peer reviewed paper and had 8 more in press.

It is extremely rare for a graduate student to conduct such important research and it is equally rare for one to publish this tremendous volume of research.  So, a graduate student who does both must be considered rare at p < .001.  No question – Emily Lund is statistically significant with a very large effect size.

Emily Lund is a wonderfully appropriate recipient of the Graduate Student Researcher of the Year Award.  Her research is both important and prolific.  As a doctoral student in Disabilities Disciplines she has developed lines of research at a level that is expected of faculty members.

Caitlin Hengge, Undergraduate Student Researcher of the Year

Caitlin Hengge is graduating in May 2016 with her BS in Human Movement Science. Prior to her sophomore year, Caitlin’s interest in human health and aging connected her with the Motor Rehabilitation and Learning Lab, directed by Dr. Sydney Schaefer in the Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. Over the next three years, she became involved in every aspect of the lab’s research on how older adults learn and adapt everyday motor skills even when they might be experiencing age-related cognitive changes. Caitlin worked tirelessly on finding new ways to recruit participants, mentor other students in the lab, and improve lab productivity. Her leadership, innovation, and maturity have enabled her to easily transition to the federally-funded position of research coordinator for the lab, a role typically filled by scientists with advanced graduate or clinical degrees.

Despite her leadership role in the lab, Caitlin is still actively conducting her own research projects on topics such as testing attentional changes associated with motor skill acquisition, establishing psychometric properties of behavioral tasks, and measuring experience-dependent changes in upper extremity motor patterns. To date, Caitlin has presented this work as first author at two national scientific meetings including the Society for Neuroscience, and has published one peer-reviewed article. She has also participated in two consecutive RGS Research Weeks and other undergraduate research symposia across campus, and has been funded directly by an Undergraduate Research and Creative Opportunities grant, the Academic Opportunity Fund, the Center for Women & Gender, and the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services throughout her research career at Utah State University. She has done all this and more while also serving as a resident advisor for 48 students in USU’s Leadership House dormitory since Fall 2014, where she has created programs and events to foster civic responsibility and leadership in her residents. Caitlin’s long-standing passion and career goal has been to enhance evidence-based medicine in the field of nursing, and is excited about her next step as she completes her nursing degree in the Accelerated BSN program at Creighton University starting in Fall 2016.