Research, Innovation & Impact

Summer. The season of backyard barbecues, trips to the lake and a little unwinding after a busy University of Missouri academic year.

For 39 Mizzou undergraduate students, the summer of 2022 also was a period of new knowledge, discovery and expanding their research and creative achievement horizons. For nine weeks, these students — along with visiting students from around the country — immersed themselves in the MU Summer Undergraduate Research Program.

Started in 2000, the Office of Undergraduate Research program offers students in disciplines ranging from behavioral and social sciences to the physical and mathematical sciences an opportunity to explore new research and scholarly activity projects under the mentorship of a faculty member.

Sixty faculty members were involved in the program this summer, which included educational and social activities and culminated with the Summer Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievements Forum on July 28 in Memorial Student Union.

Here is what four MU students had to say about their experience.

Maggie Fitzgerald
Junior
Major: Dietetics
Hometown: St. Louis

Briefly describe your research project:
My research was on how Dining with Diabetes influences health behaviors. Dining with Diabetes is a community education program for type 2 or pre-diabetic adults and their adult family members. As a pilot project, MU Extension recently expanded this program to include basic culinary skills and a deeper knowledge of nutrition and physical activity. My research aim was to determine program efficacy to ensure the improvement of the dietary and physical activity habits of diabetic or pre-diabetic participants. My second aim was to understand participant knowledge in disease management. My results revealed improvements in general diabetic knowledge and dietary habits, including fried foods and fruit and vegetable consumption. Nutrition knowledge improved to a near statistically significant amount. There were no significant improvements in physical activity and dietary habits, including dairy, sugary sweetened beverages and baked fish consumption.

How did you get involved in this project?
I was a food safety, nutrition and health intern with MU Extension. I am interested in nutrition, so as part of my internship, I learned about MU Extension’s nutrition education programs. One of which was a pilot program, Dining with Diabetes. I wanted to see if Dining with Diabetes was effective in educating Missourians about the prevention and management of their disease.

How do you think this summer of work will make you a better researcher/student?
After working on Dining with Diabetes with my mentors Kristin Miller and Kelsey Weitzel, I have learned to write research abstracts and create a professional research poster. I have gained knowledge of Microsoft software and how to collect and organize data. This knowledge allows me to be more confident in working independently on future projects.

Are you continuing to explore this research? If so, what’s next? If not, what other research topics are you considering?
Future implications of implementing the community-based program, Dining with Diabetes in Missouri, can help participants improve aspects of disease prognosis and increase awareness of diabetic complications and disease management. In future studies, I would like to continue collecting data from across the state and combine it with the pilot data. I would also like to assist in the Dining with Diabetes class!

What are your career plans?
I plan on graduating from Mizzou with my master’s in dietetics. I am interested in becoming a pediatric clinical dietitian. I will always continue expanding my nutrition knowledge. Nutrition research is constantly evolving and as a future dietitian, I must stay up to date to give my patients the best and most relevant interventions possible.

Leah Jordan
Junior
Major: Biology
Hometown: St. Louis

Briefly describe your research project:
Missouri has had a history of racism and economic and health disparities. Missouri still faces racism today in its police force, college institutions and structurally/environmentally. More specifically the Black community in St. Louis has had limited access to resources and opportunities. Due to these experiences, there has been a rise in mental health concerns for Black emerging adults (ages 18-27). This concern is race-based traumatic stress, which is a by-product of racism. Black Americans historically have had the lowest rates of use and access to mental health services. Moreover, Black emerging adults are even less likely to receive mental health services. Using in-depth interviews, this research aims to explore how race-based traumatic stress affects the lives of Black emerging adults in the St. Louis area and how it impacts their mental health/mental health-seeking behaviors.

How did you get involved in this project?
I did a summer research program here at Mizzou called the Missouri Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation. During this program, I was paired with a mentor by the name of Dr. Kaleea Lewis, who works here at Mizzou. I had an opportunity to work with Dr. Lewis on her research project, which I presented at the research forum.

How do you think this summer of work will make you a better researcher?
Over the summer, I learned a lot of new ideas and strategies. This summer made me a better researcher by helping me to always remember to stay curious and not give up when things get hard or when I might not understand. It taught me the importance of hard work, persistence and career readiness.

Are you continuing to explore this research? If so, what’s next? If not, what other research topics are you considering?
Right now, I am not continuing with this research. I plan to keep in contact with Dr. Lewis and see how the project progresses. In the meantime, I plan to join another lab and continue to grow as a researcher.

What are your career plans?
My career plans as of right now are to go to medical school and pursue a career as an OBGYN or pediatrician.

Leah Lepore
Junior
Major: Biochemistry
Hometown: Saint Charles, Missouri

Briefly describe your research project:
I work for Shift Pharmaceuticals, a drug startup company co-founded by Dr. Chris Lorson, an investigator in the Bond Life Sciences Center. Currently, we are working on a therapy for a hereditary neuropathy called Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 1A. This disease affects roughly one in 3,300 and is caused by an overexpression of a gene called peripheral myelin protein-22 (PMP22), which causes neuronal and myelination defects. There is no treatment for this disease, and affected individuals suffer from limited dexterity and wasting of the hands and feet. We are combatting this using a gene therapy that reduces PMP22’s expression.

How did you get involved in this project?
I networked with a graduate student at a different lab that I had joined during my first year on campus, and she got me in touch with Dr. Lorson as a student to help her start on this new project. I joined the lab that summer after my freshman year.

How do you think this summer of work will make you a better researcher/student?
I have always enjoyed immersing myself in all things research because I believe scientific discovery is one of the most rewarding things to be involved in on Mizzou’s campus! It has made me extremely comfortable understanding the fundamentals of my degree while simultaneously getting real-world experience.

Are you continuing to explore this research? If so, what’s next? If not, what other research topics are you considering?
Yes, I plan on working on this project through graduation. I started on this project when it was on the ground floor, so I hope to be a part of the team that takes an idea through the start of clinical trials. I would love to be able to say that my research helped people. Whether it is at the bench or in the clinic, I want to help people.

What are your career plans?
I hope to matriculate to medical school as a part of the incoming class of 2024. 

Joseph Outar
Junior
Major: Plant Science
Hometown: Little Rock, Arkansas

Briefly describe your research project:
My research is focused on the disease resistance of varying crop plants grown in the U.S and how to improve that resistance genetically. I worked on developing a usable tool to simulate the effect of multiple diseases on a single specimen at the same time. This tool is developed by creating a bacterium that possesses the gene to secrete the exact disease I'm looking to use.

How did you get involved in this project?
I joined Dr. Walter Gassmann's lab as a second-semester freshman student and have learned from the lab enough over that time to where I felt comfortable starting my project.

How do you think this summer of work will make you a better researcher/student?
This summer went a long way to improving my independence and comfort in the lab as I had never spent that much time consecutively in the space. Being there every day except weekends allowed me to fully immerse myself without worrying about classes, and I was able to make exponential progress compared to what I had done previously. I also gained experience in reading scientific papers, which will benefit me in almost all my future classes.

Are you continuing to explore this research? If so, what’s next? If not, what other research topics are you considering?
I will continue this type of research until I graduate, and then I'll look elsewhere for more experience. Plant pathology is interesting, but I don't want to limit myself to it just yet. I'm interested in looking into viticultural research as well as ethnobotanical research.

What are your career plans?
I will be applying to multiple graduate-level programs with a focus on plant science, and then, from there, I'd like to become a researcher for the agriculture industry.