Application Process for Rice Undergraduate Students

To apply, submit the following application documents online at 12twenty (12twenty account needed).

• Student Application Form
• Resume
• Unofficial Transcript
• Project-Specific Paragraph for each project to which you are applying

Research Projects available for Academic Year 2024-25

Application deadline for the Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 semesters is Friday, May 31, 2024 at 11:59pm Central.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Shannan Hamlin (Houston Methodist Hospital)

Project Title
Acute Care Delirium Through the Ages

Project Description
Research centered on delirium and interventions in the hospitalized patient has generally focused on the elderly population. However, patients of all ages are at risk for developing delirium while hospitalized due to change in environment, changes to sleep-wake cycle, medications, etc. A multi-center research proposal aims to understand the prevalence of delirium in hospitalized patients less than 70 years of age along with identifying risk factors and prevention strategies.

Possible tasks the student would be expected to perform
Students working on the research project would be responsible for reviewing patient medical records and interviewing patients about their experiences during hospitalization.

Specific skills or training the student should have before beginning the project
Students would need to be CITI trained and credentialed to perform research at Houston Methodist. In addition, students would need training on how to obtain patient informed consent, interviewing skills and how to use EPIC.

Onboarding
The selected student must show evidence of completion of specific CITI IRB training modules through Methodist prior to starting the fellowship. Details will be included in the acceptance letter. In addition, the student will need to complete Methodist visitor onboarding and EPIC training.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Eugenia Georges

Project Title
Transnational Medical Education and Maternity Care Reform in Greece

Project Description
Greece has one of the highest rates of cesarean birth in the world. My project examines the ENGAGE Trial, the first nation-wide initiative to introduce innovative protocols and training programs across Greece to reduce unnecessary cesareans. Launched in 2021, the initiative was designed by a largely transnational consortium of diasporic Greek obstetricians, most of whom left Greece after the economic crisis to train and work in the UK. The student will assist in the analysis of life history narratives of the obstetricians and other medical professionals in the UK and Greece who been instrumental in the design and implementation of the initiative.

Possible tasks the student would be expected to perform
Assist with literature review on global medical brain drain, doctor's educational and training experiences in the diaspora, return migration and impact of practices in the country of origin; coding and assist in qualitative analysis of interviews; possible co-authorship of articles based on the project.

Specific skills or training the student should have before beginning the project
-Qualitative research experience
-Experience with qualitative analysis and narrative analysis in particular

Onboarding
The selected student must show evidence of completion of specific CITI IRB training modules prior to starting the fellowship. Details will be included in the acceptance letter.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Ilana Gershon

Project Title
The Pandemic Family

Project Description
I explore how US-American family dynamics shaped people’s responses to the pandemics, focusing on two aspects. First, I explore how particular structural roles in families shaped whose interpretation of Covid information would be acted upon. Second, I analyze how patterned forms of negotiations and decision-making within these families shaped people’s responses and interpretation to shifting medical information in the first two years of the pandemic. Using anthropological understandings of family decision-making as a starting point for understanding responses to medical knowledge, this research will offer an alternative understanding of health communication that situates the individual(s) in the network they are embedded in, and, in turn, enables more effective and active medical communication. The project highlights how socially intertwined people are as they disseminate and decide with others how to act upon the medical information they receive in culturally specific ways. My oral history interviews with families about their pandemic decisions revealed that the most pressing questions around how people responded to Covid-19 risks or government regulations were not whether or not individuals received clear medical information that they were equipped to interpret. Rather, people’s responses largely depended upon complex negotiations and decision-making within their families, shaped by cultural assumptions around who could tell another what to do. Any student researcher will learn qualitative techniques for analyzing people's interpretative strategies processing medical information.

Possible tasks the student would be expected to perform
An undergraduate research assistant will code my interviews using Taquette, conduct literature review searches on the most recent publications about Covid’s effect on families, and record, clean up, and code AI-transcriptions of webinars oriented toward nannies.

Specific skills or training the student should have before beginning the project
Familiarity with coding software such as Taguette or Atlas.ti -- or willingness to learn

Onboarding
The selected student must show evidence of completion of specific CITI IRB training modules prior to starting the fellowship. Details will be included in the acceptance letter.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Kirstin Matthews

Project Title
The Privilege of Medical Freedom

Project Description
The Medical Freedom Movement gained traction in the past two decades around discussions of healthcare autonomy and consent increased. Once considered a fringe movement, it has evolved as a key political topic. Vaccine mandates and access to unproven therapies in particular are highly contested issues with Medical Freedom advocates arguing that the individual’s right to make decisions for their own health is more important that public health and protections from the marketing of fraudulent health products. However, where does medical freedom begin and end? Who are promoting these ideas and who can access medical freedom? This project explores how medical freedom is discussed and defined by advocates and in the literature. The goal is to assess how one’s identity can shape the extent to which they can access medical freedom. Student researchers will assist Dr. Matthews and Baker researchers with a literature review, manuscript preparation, development of outreach materials, and other administrative tasks.

Possible tasks the student would be expected to perform
Student researchers will:
• Conduct literature reviews using PubMed or Google Scholar search engines;
• Analyze publications and new media on Medical Freedom;
• Help with manuscript preparation and editing;
• Develop outreach materials via Canva or Adobe Suite; and
• Conduct administrative tasks.

Specific skills or training the student should have before beginning the project
None

Onboarding
The selected student must show evidence of completion of specific CITI IRB training modules prior to starting the fellowship. Details will be included in the acceptance letter.