Students Broaden Vision with Summer Research Projects

Working in locations from a children’s hospital at Stanford to the Cleveland Clinic — as well as on campus — NEOMED students involved in the Summer Research Fellowship Program  expanded their horizons. At the University’s annual Poster Day, held Friday, Aug. 24, nearly 90 Northeast Ohio Medical University students from the Colleges of Medicine, Pharmacy and Graduate Studies presented their research.

Students with posters filled the NEW Center Ballroom, sharing their summer’s work with peers, faculty and staff. Paul DiCorleto, Ph.D., vice president for research and sponsored programs at Kent State University, joined the students to learn more about their projects before delivering the keynote address, “How Heart Disease Develops.”

Reducing Stress through Virtual Reality

 “I completed a summer fellowship at Stanford in something called the Childhood Anxiety Reduction through Innovation and Technology (CHARIOT) Program at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. CHARIOT uses virtual reality, augmented reality, and lots of other innovative technologies to decrease pain and anxiety in kids prior to surgery or other stressful procedures. It’s something that is wildly successful at Lucile Packard. It’s a really, really cool program. My specific project was using other kinds of innovative technology, specifically high-flow nasal cannulas in a machine we call TRIBE.

It was a very cool summer because I got to work with amazing people and mentors who are world-renowned anesthesiologists. I got to spend my weekends going to San Francisco and things like that. It was all-around such a positive experience. But honestly, my favorite part was the research. Every day I was so excited to wake up and go into work, even on the days I had to be there at 6 a.m.,” says Alisha Gupta, who recently completed her first year in the College of Medicine.

Gupta is currently taking a year off to complete an M.B.A at the University of Akron, a NEOMED partner university.

Round of applause for research

Every year, the College of Medicine recognizes three students for outstanding presentations. The Colleges of Pharmacy and Graduate Studies each recognize one student.

Congratulations to the following students, who were honored for outstanding presentations:

• Austin Hilt, College of Medicine Class of 2020
• Ryan Edelbrock, College of Medicine Class of 2021
• Emily Sullivan and Geetika Srivastava, College of Medicine Class of 2021
• Peter Palmer, College of Medicine Class of 2022
• Nazar Hussein, College of Graduate Studies Ph.D candidate

Fun fact: Students from all three colleges are eligible for the College of Pharmacy award, as long as they conduct their research under the auspices of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. This year’s College of Pharmacy award recipient was Peter Palmer, a first-year College of Medicine student.