Hi, my name is Emma Levine. I'm a senior at WashU. My major is Mathematics and Economics, and I have a minor in Public Health & Society. Right now, I'm doing public health research on the med campus. The project I'm currently working on works with the Global Social Determinants of Health Survey. We look at mental health in eight different countries, and we look for ways to measure mental health outcomes and how those might differ.

How did you get involved with the project? We always want to know how to find research opportunities.

As a WashU student, we have access to a lot of summer programs, and I was in the Global Health Summer Research Program. We get assigned to a faculty member and do research with them. I was lucky to be assigned with Dr. Salma Abdalla, but there are so many different labs that you can work with. We also had students that initiated their own projects, and that was cool to see as well.

What do you do when you're at the lab?

Over the summer and for these past few months, I did a lot of data analysis on RStudio. Whether it was cleaning the data, sorting it out, trying to find patterns in the data, making graphs and charts to present, or even doing some regression analyses (which are pretty difficult), I was lucky to have a data analyst in my lab who could help me. Right now, I'm in the middle of writing my research letter. It's basically a mini-paper where you look at different articles and combine them with your research to come up with a new finding. I think it’s pretty interesting. 

What is a skill you were surprised to gain?

Public speaking. You think that working in a research lab, you're huddled at a computer and doing work. For me at least, we were able to engage with audiences through presentations and we had a symposium where we were able to share our research. I didn't really consider myself to be that great of a public speaker before, but we got a lot of training on how to make your research resonate and how to connect with other people. 

It's really important for me as a Public Health & Society Student Ambassador to encourage people to reach out to that person doing interesting research, or take that class, or make new connections. I regret not doing that earlier at WashU. 

What's been the best part of your research project so far?

I have so many great connections. Working in a lab, you're able to meet a lot of faculty. My mentor is such an expert in mental health and global and population health that whenever she speaks to me, I think: wow, she knows so much on her topic. I definitely learned things academically while conducting research, but I also met a network of public health professionals now that I can reach out to. And for that, I'm endlessly grateful.

Another thing I love about public health research, is that we are able to immerse ourselves into finding solutions for and bringing awareness to real world problems. The fact that I am working to help people is something I am very proud of.

What would you tell a Public Health & Society student who is interested in research but does not know where to start?

I would say to check out the Bursky Public Health website. Don't be afraid to cold email people about the research they're doing. You might have to give them a nudge, but they will respond. In addition, there's a lot of summer programs that you can do. I was in the Global Health cohort, but I know that there are other cohorts as well, including SPHERE, which is a planetary and environmental cohort, and FARM, which is the food and agriculture cohort. There's a lot of different possibilities!

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