Summer Research Program

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Minority Health Disparities Summer Research Experience for Undergraduates is an interdisciplinary program aimed at conducting cutting edge social and behavioral research into understanding and reducing health disparities and in diversifying minority health researchers.

This project takes place under support of a Summer REU grant from the National Science Foundation for research in social network analysis (SNA) and minority health. As part of that program, participating students will learn basic approaches to network science/SNA in order to employ these skills where possible in their summer research projects.

SNA instruction will take place during a 2-week intensive class led by Kirk Dombrowski (Professor of Sociology, UNL), scheduled for the first two weeks of the program. Training will be used to enrich the students experience in their partner laboratories during the subsequent 8 weeks. The primary student outcome of this part of the summer research experience will be an introductory facility in social network terminology, visualization, and exploration.

Participating students work with faculty mentors in a variety of social and behavioral science disciplines to support health research.  All projects are on-going, but the work specific to the summer research program will be completed within the 10-week timeframe.  At the conclusion of the program, participants will present their research at the Summer Research Symposium poster session.