2021 STIR Scholars: Their Projects

Learn more about the work of our 2021 Impact Scholars

 

Ashly’s project focuses on forming an earthquake engineering and seismology community alliance in Latin America. She believes there is a high potential of transformational advances in earthquake engineering by addressing the disproportionate effects of earthquakes in Latin American cities through scientific and human-centered lenses.

Callie’s project focuses on developing an equitable talent pipeline for educational researchers.She will conduct a qualitative pilot study with undergraduate co-researchers to understand what undergraduates at NC State University know and believe about the field of educational research. The participatory element of engaging undergraduates as co-researchers in the study is intended to model an innovative, high-impact practice. Her work would open many dimensions of scholarship through outreach and engagement activities.

Erin’s project focuses on increasing science awareness in rural areas through collaborative teacher lesson development. She believes that by doing so, more rural students will be aware of science capabilities and interested in taking science classes and entering scientific careers.

Erin’s project focuses on exploring the attitudes, perceptions, and behavioral drivers of antimicrobial use within the social context of companion animal caretakers and veterinarians. Her work aims to increase the veterinarian profession’s understanding of client behaviors and enhance shared decision making to promote antimicrobial stewardship.

Jackie’s project, iWolfpack Readers, is an online afterschool literacy tutoring program. The goal of this program is to improve third-grade students’ domain-specific vocabulary knowledge, informational text reading comprehension, and reading motivation. Her work aims to build long-term research practice partnerships and agendas that unite the needs in local contexts and interests of researchers, practitioners, and parents.

Jesse’s project works on developing a more complete understanding of wastewater reuse in the Mezquital Valley, Hidalgo, Mexico, to provide a foundation for future community-engaged research.

Maru is pilot testing the #PassTheMicYouth curriculum to nurture youth-led community engagement. The goal of her project is to engage 4-H youth between the ages of 14 and 18 in Wake County through developing critical reflection about social justice issues, nurturing political efficacy, and motivating social action and community engagement through coalition building and creative expression.

Robin’s project’s overarching goal is to investigate the relationship between language variation and certain kinds of ego network characteristics in Raleigh. She has hired Black undergraduate students in STEM majors for the project’s data collection as well as participation in a mentoring system designed to help them with educational and/or career goals.

Roger’s work focuses on implementing a Science Saturday program at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and providing 3D printing workshops to teachers. In addition, the broader impacts of his work allows sharing results from his research to people and their families.

Traci’s project’s goal is to understand how the built environment can better serve as a health intervention, supporting health promotion in under-resourced communities.

Xiaomeng’s project was to host two weeks’ “Smart Textile” summer camp in her college’s existing Summer Textile Exploration Program (STEP). Xiaomeng and her graduate students covered contents including fundamentals of textile technologies and engineering, and then focused on smart textiles, specifically textile robots. This event provided tools, practical examples, and hands-on experiences to engage students. In the end, students developed fabric robots as a potential products that are urgently needed to address the challenges related to our life quality and well-being. Based on the front-end evaluation strategy results, this project was well welcomed by high school students and has significant enhanced their interests in textile technologies or STEM fields.

Douglas is working to enhance climate literacy and promote sustainability in western North Carolina.