Friday, January 24, 2025 189 View all Fort Lewis College news FLC Undergraduate Research Fall Poster Symposium unveils curiosity, passion for learning The event offered a platform for students to share their insights and engage with pressing issues that affect communities locally and globally. The event offered a platform for students to share their insights and engage with pressing issues that affect communities locally and globally. DURANGO, COLO.— Studying public health is personal for Fort Lewis College student Nina Max, who is Diné. “Diabetes runs in my family. This is why I chose public health—so I can bring solutions back to my community," said Max, who was among nearly 100 undergraduate students who gathered at the Student Union Ballroom to showcase their work during the Undergraduate Research Fall Poster Symposium, held in December. The Undergraduate Research Fall Poster Symposium offered a platform for students to share their insights and engage with pressing issues that affect communities locally and globally. From addressing health inequities in the Navajo Nation to understanding gender differences in mental health and decoding the planet’s climatic past, each project reflected a drive to make a tangible difference, said Undergraduate Research Coordinator Christina Smith. “I am inspired by how awesome our students and faculty mentors are. They turn ideas into actionable solutions and, in very meaningful ways, push the boundaries of knowledge in their respective fields”, Smith said. In her research, Max investigated the disproportionate rates of diabetes-related hospitalizations between American Indian/Alaska Native and white Medicare enrollees in McKinley County, New Mexico. The region encompasses much of the Navajo Nation. Drawing on Medicare data and an extensive review of 43 scholarly articles, Max identified social determinants of health contributing to the disparity. “Hospitalization rates among American Indian and Alaska Native populations are significantly higher,” Max explained, attributing this gap to factors like limited access to fresh foods, insufficient recreational facilities, rural isolation, and structural racism. Her findings revealed a web of challenges: “Many elderly people only understand Navajo, which makes medical information inaccessible,” she noted. In response, Max proposed actionable solutions, including establishing community gardens, integrating Navajo storytelling traditions into public health education, and engaging elders to translate complex medical terms into Navajo. Unearthing climate history In environmental science, students like Ashley Rypkema explored the ancient past to understand Earth’s climate history. Their research focuses on studying wetlands in glacial landscapes, where they extract sediment cores to analyze past climates. “We use pollen analysis and radiocarbon dating to reconstruct how climate has shifted over thousands of years,” said faculty mentor Jared Beeton, associate professor of Environment & Sustainability at FLC. By piecing together these historical records, the team hopes to shed light on how climate may change in the future. “Understanding the past gives us the tools to prepare for what’s ahead,” he added. The project combined academic rigor with a spirit of adventure, added Rypkema. “Hands-on research is exciting because you get to be a part of the whole process, from pulling our own samples and then writing about our findings,” she said. “There is something so satisfying about reconstructing how landscapes have changed in the past, and finding out that we pulled soil samples that were over 20,000 years old was a little mind-blowing. I went from not even knowing that the field of paleoenvironmental research existed to wanting to continue learning about it and pursuing it in the future.” Rypkema was invited to present her research at the Geological Society Conference in Los Angeles, an opportunity that was “surreal,” she said. “Being surrounded by people who have done incredible work in geosciences, I talked to people who have done fieldwork and still enjoy what they do every day. This really inspired and encouraged me to continue to do research in the environmental field.” Inspiring Research, Meaningful Impact Stacia Raley, who investigated gender disparities in anxiety disorders among Medicare enrollees in Jefferson County, Colorado, uncovered an 8 percent higher prevalence of anxiety disorders among females, a gap exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Raley pinpointed several contributors to this disparity, including increased domestic violence, caregiving burdens, and social isolation, particularly during the pandemic lockdowns. “Many women were confined with abusers during COVID, and their resources to escape were limited,” she said. Raley’s proposed solutions included bolstering social support networks, improving resources for domestic violence survivors, and increasing anxiety literacy among older adults. “Older populations often lack access to the Internet, which limits their knowledge and coping strategies,” she said. Her research called for tailored interventions to meet the specific needs of these communities. Nora Flucke, Ph. D., an assistant professor of Public Health, served as a faculty mentor to both Max and Raley. As Nina Max articulated, “This research is just the beginning. My goal is to create lasting change for my community.”