It’s no secret that Emory students can be hands-on with groundbreaking research. Even between semesters or academic years, plenty of students continue to pursue innovation with the help of prestigious outside funding.
Meet five students — Gayeong Kim, Thiên Nguyen, Srijon Sarkar, Hayden Smith and Evan Weingarten — who have recently been awarded funding, opening the door to the research they’re passionate about.
Gayeong Kim
Gayeong Kim is pursuing her PhD in nursing, with a specific focus on the health care transition of adolescent and young adult childhood cancer survivors. Kim was attracted to Emory due to its multidisciplinary approach and research-intensive environment.
“Now, as a fourth-year PhD student, I can confidently affirm that choosing Emory was a pivotal and exceptional decision in my journey toward becoming a professional nursing scholar and scientist,” she says.
This spring, Kim was awarded a doctoral scholarship from the Oncology Nursing Foundation, supported by the Oncology Nursing Foundation, Oncology Nursing Certification Corporation and the Ann Olson Scholarship Fund. Designed to support nurses dedicated to oncology nursing by advancing their education and pursuing a research doctoral degree, Kim says the scholarship will provide her with financial support and resources essential for completing her dissertation research work.
Kim’s research project, “Impact of social determinants on healthcare transition readiness among adolescent and young adult childhood cancer survivors,” aims to understand the influence of neighborhood-level social determinants on health care transition readiness in this population.
“Health care transition is essential for childhood cancer survivors to ensure ongoing monitoring and management of potential late complications from the toxicity of cancer treatments,” says Kim, explaining that complications can persist or even develop many years after the completion of treatment.
Kim is using a theoretical framework that focuses on the influence of neighborhood factors on health care transitions and readiness. That includes poor access to medical care, lower quality of available food and increased exposure to risky environmental factors, such as pollution.
“During my time working as a bedside nurse in a pediatric surgical ward, I was involved in the transition process from childhood to adulthood and from pediatric care settings to adult-centered settings,” Kim says. “I witnessed patients’ physical, emotional and social suffering during this transition. Recognizing the challenges faced by these individuals and their families, I aim to explore the factors affecting their health care transitions.”
Winning the award felt incredible, she says. “I was overwhelmed with a mix of excitement and gratitude. It felt surreal to have my research and dedication recognized by such a prestigious award. I’m deeply honored that this acknowledgment not only highlights the significance of my project but also brings attention to the critical issues faced by adolescent and young adult childhood cancer survivors.”
Thiên Nguyen
Thiên Nguyen is a first-generation student who initially entered Emory majoring in public policy and analysis, on the pre-law track.
“I felt obligated to enter a field that offered my family and me the financial stability we needed,” Nguyen says, “and I thought that being a lawyer was the most stable choice I could make for us. However, when I started to take my required major classes, I didn’t particularly enjoy what I was learning.”
Nguyen initially turned to anthropology while exploring what he was passionate about, but none of those classes fit with his schedule.
“So I pivoted again — this time to sociology. When I took my first set of classes that spring, I fell in love with the discipline. Sociology gave me a window into understanding the complexities of the ivory towers that seemingly looked down upon me,” Nguyen says. “Learning about the inequalities that faced me because of my social identities gave me the power to make sense of the social world and put words into action. Now, I want to pursue a PhD in sociology to take up space within its elite walls and dive into sociological research that knows no bounds. I am so thankful that I ended up on this path.”
He recently participated in the Summer Research Early Identification Program in Sociology at Brown University, part of the Leadership Alliance Mellon Initiative. Nguyen’s research project explores how students whose parents have not attained a bachelor’s degree make sense of their first-generation student status and its intersection with other identity markers (such as class and race) in forming collegiate friendships. By using qualitative methods, the study drew from journals and interviews with four students at elite private universities, collected by the Pandemic Journaling Project team across 16 months.
“We analyzed how race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status and institutional support affected friendship and identity formation,” Nguyen says. “Our preliminary findings suggest first-generation college students will approach friendships through ‘identity work,’ where they will transform themselves to socialize according to their most salient identity — be it race, ethnicity or class — depending on their social location.” Ultimately, this approach may expand or inhibit their ability to make friends.
Nguyen noted a common theme across participants’ journal entries and interview transcripts: friendship.
“It reminded me of the advice I was given by my teachers and mentors when I left for university, which was to ‘take up space’ and ‘find my place’ on campus. This would eventually serve as a basis for my research, where I became interested in seeing how first-generation students carry out that advice.”
Srijon Sarkar
Srijon Sarkar is a mathematics and computer science major who spent the summer with the National Science Foundation’s 2024 Research Experience for Undergraduates on Computation Mathematics and Data Science, which was hosted at Emory.
Sarkar has been curious about math for quite some time but has always wanted to work on problems that have a “tangible effect on the real world.” That desire led him to the applications area, including programming and algorithms as related to computer science.
“Emory, particularly being a Research I university, has some of the best faculty working on optimization and inverse problems, which further solidified my interest in pursuing those at Emory,” Sarkar says.
This summer, he worked on a project that included processing image sequences using the Krylov subspace recycling. Sarkar focused on developing efficient, repeated algorithms for applications that deblur medical imaging, such as CT scan results.
Because those health care instruments need to be portable, one common detriment is blurred images. When certain problems grow large enough, they can’t be solved using standard methods.
“Therefore, we need ‘better’ ways to approximate solutions to such problems and, in fact, efficient techniques to help solve a sequence of these problems with less computation expenses. That’s where our project comes in,” Sarkar says.
While the project had its ups and downs, Sarkar explains that working with his teammates and advisor helped lighten the load. It also offered new experience, as Sarkar had primarily worked on independent projects in the past.
“I also got to interact with students from a variety of other institutions and really understand their curriculum, research and experiences,” Sarkar says. “This allowed me to understand the true essence of collaboration between communities.”
But pursuing this project — and discovering an even deeper passion for numerical analysis and linear algebra — wouldn’t have been possible without the award. Lars Ruthotto, director of the Emory Computational Mathematics for Data Science REU, shared the good news with Sarkar.
“When I got the confirmation I was so happy and relieved that I could spend my summer researching things I actually love,” says Sarkar.
“There is a certain elegance to mathematical proofs, as there is immense fulfillment to untying a tedious programming part; I never dealt with such extensive overlap of the two as I did in this project,” Sarkar says. “Combined, these provided various mental models for me to approach research and tackle research problems at Emory.”
Hayden Smith
Hayden Smith has been busy researching the efficacy of an adaptive case-based learning module in identifying cerebellopontine angle masses, a type of brain tumor. His work was partly funded by a grant from the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
A student at Emory School of Medicine, Smith says he knew he wanted a career where he could have a profound impact on others. In just four years of medical school, he’s able to impact thousands of patients — in part thanks to Emory’s strength in clinical training, which is what led Smith to pursue his education here.
As for radiology? Well, it runs in the family, with two uncles who practice general radiology. Smith admits he didn’t know a lot about it, but knew it sounded “incredibly interesting.”
Through conversations with fellow Emory students and faculty, Smith was connected with his mentor, Brent Weinberg, the neuroradiology division director and director of the Emory Diagnostic Radiology Residency Research Track, as well as Weinberg’s research resident, Wasif Bala. Smith credits both mentors for helping hone his research skills and guiding him in his career thus far.
He’s been putting those lessons to great use.
“This project proposes that using an adaptive, case-based learning module improves cognitive retention and optimizes eye movement patterns in radiology residents,” explains Smith. “The module will use this deliberate-practice hypothesis to teach the appearance of common cerebellopontine angle masses to radiology residents.”
By comparing this developed learning approach with traditional study modules, the team hopes to improve students’ performance and identification of these masses.
“Our hypothesis is that the learning module group will have higher objective performance after intervention and eye-tracking measures that are closer to those of expert readers,” he says.
Before medical school, Smith worked as a teacher. This project allowed him to marry his love of education with his love of medicine.
“I was so grateful to receive this award for the RSNA Medical Student Grant. It will greatly improve our team’s execution of the project, from recruiting research participants to hiring consultants to optimizing the website and module interface,” Smith says.
“I was completely humbled when I found out I was granted this award,” he recalls. “All I felt was gratitude. I understand there are many medical students across the country passionate about radiology research topics, and I will work diligently to honor this amazing opportunity.”
Evan Weingarten
Evan Weingarten graduated in May 2024 from Emory College of Arts and Sciences with a double major in philosophy and chemistry. On paper, the two may seem entirely unrelated. But to Weingarten, the combination made perfect sense.
“I felt that a double major in philosophy would complement my chemistry degree by further challenging me to improve my critical thinking, problem-solving and technical writing skills,” he says. “I also have an interest in exploring worldviews and philosophical perspectives that differ from my own.”
This fall, Weingarten is beginning his PhD program in chemistry at Cornell University, a choice resulting “principally because of my undergraduate research experience at Emory,” he says. “At the end of my sophomore year, I was very fortunate to join Professor Huw Davies’ research group. The opportunity he provided and the mentorship I received helped me foster a love for chemistry.
“It was then I realized that through chemistry, and developing new synthetic methods, I could have an impact on drug discovery, materials science, agricultural science and beyond. This was highly motivating.”
Last spring, Weingarten was awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship Program from the National Science Foundation. The five-year fellowship provides a three-year annual stipend in addition to a cost-of-education allowance for tuition and fees.
“I was overjoyed to learn that I was awarded this fellowship,” he says. “I was also filled with immense gratitude to all those that helped me reach this point in my education and career, including my undergraduate research advisor, professors and mentors, as well as my family and friends.”
Because the stipend is not tied to a specific advisor, Weingarten explains, “This will allow me to pursue the kind of research that interests me most while at Cornell and gives me greater flexibility when choosing an advisor, since the advisor doesn’t need to secure funds for me to join the group.”
While Weingarten has not yet selected an advisor, he hopes to continue conducting research in the area of synthetic methodology development, building on his experience at Emory.
“I look forward to starting my graduate studies at Cornell this fall, but I will continue to follow the great work of Professor Davies and other faculty within the chemistry department at Emory in the years to come.”