Diabetes and cardiovascular disease play a significant role in disease and mortality in the US, especially among underrepresented groups. Lack of physical activity and unhealthy eating can lead to cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes, and other adverse health outcomes. This project will utilize community based participatory research to develop a wellness program from American Indians in San Diego County. This will be done through conducting focus groups, and interviews with community members and through conducting surveys on health and wellness. Further, a wellness program will be developed from community feedback. We expect to observe an increase of physical activity, better diet, and higher knowledge about healthy behaviors with the program.

Understanding how adolescents explain gratitude in peer interactions uncovers how they view their identities and social worlds during a time when they are transitioning to the responsibilities of adulthood. Earlier studies define “gratitude” as a state of appreciation, and have shown that adolescent feelings of gratitude correlate with increased well-being, academic performance, and prosocial behavior. Furthermore, our previous findings suggest adolescents have differing rationale for why they feel grateful in situations when they either enact or receive calming, angering, avenging, and reconciling intervention from their peers. The goal of this study was to ask: 1) How do adolescents explain feelings of gratitude they feel following intervention in victimization events? 2) How do rationales for feelings of gratitude vary between actor and recipient of a peer intervention? 3) How does gratitude differ when adolescents calm, amplify, avenge, or reconcile a previously victimized peer? We qualitatively coded explanations provided by 265 adolescents for emotions in each condition. Our findings showed actors felt more gratitude when calming their peers, and recipients felt more gratitude after reconciliation. Peer gratitude was predicted to be more strongly linked to a desire for security when the subject was the recipient (e.g. “I was grateful she looked out for me”), and more strongly linked to a desire to display competence when the subject was the actor (e.g. “I was grateful she took my advice”). We carried out quantitative analyses using repeated measures analysis of variance and Epistemic Network Analysis. The findings from this study contribute to understanding peer relationships, which could help educators navigate student actions that de-escalate conflicts and promote well-being in student social environments.

STUDIO is a peer mentoring program that focuses on connecting University of Washington (UW) undergraduate student mentors with low income, immigrant and refugee youth through Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics( STEM). The program is a partnership with the Neighborhood House community center in the High Point Neighborhood of West Seattle. Neighborhood House provides the facilities and is the gathering place for UW mentors and youth mentees on a weekly basis. As STUDIO is offered as an undergraduate course (EDUC 421), the mentors visit Neighborhood House once a week and then attend a weekly seminar class on campus as well. The program began as a research study that focuses on promoting youth interest in STEM. However, over the past few years it has made progress in undergraduate STEM learning research as well. As a lead mentor within the STUDIO program, I have an opportunity to participate in research aspect as well as cultivate mentorship with youth, and supporting other mentors. In this study, I explore how relationships between youth and mentors develop in STUDIO. I am doing this through analysis of documentation of STEM and non-STEM activities, written reflections of mentors and interviews. They are analyzed for types of relationships that mentors develop through this program as well as themes and patterns of development. The goal is to better understand how a mentorship program that focuses on bridging the gap of educational inequity for youth lends possibility for undergraduate learning through relationships building.

LGBTQ+ students face overwhelmingly negative statistics in and out of school, here and across the world. Supportive teachers and the educational efforts they are involved in like GSAs (Gay Straight Alliance), inclusive curriculum, and specifically inclusive policies make significant positive effects on LGBTQ+ students. The teachers that can understand these students the most though are LGBTQ+ themselves. This project explores the following questions. 1. How do teachers who identify as LGBTQ+ interact with their public education system? 2. Do teachers who identify as LGBTQ+ feel supported in the daily work life and in their professional goals as teachers? 3. What insights do teachers who identify as LGTBQ+ have for their LGBTQ+ students? Through collaboration with various equity and educational leaders, primarily from Washington State and the UW College of Education, a Google Forms survey was created and shared through various digital platforms. Qualitative data was taken from the survey responses of 20 LGBTQ+ identifying teachers in the United States and 2 in China. Responses were analyzed using coding techniques where I deep read responses and categorized them by relationships and on a scale of trust. A majority of teachers were open about their identity and stated feeling supported by their schools. However, analysis revealed that most long answer text responses showed varying levels of mistrust: between teacher and faculty; teacher, student and the school community; as a factor of race and ethnicity; and learned from their life history from student to teacher. The suggested solutions are to recreate and implement discrimination and protective policies, curriculum, and space and face reforms that are specifically inclusive to the entire range of identities that LGBTQ+ individuals inhabit. Additionally, more research needs to be done in how policies and LGBTQ+ issues affect the symbiotic relationships between students and educators.

In the era of new technologies, the functions of mobile apps cover all aspects of our lives. Social networking apps expand our social and business groups, as well as increase job and entertainment opportunities dramatically. Other types of apps, such as travel and buying & selling apps, enable people to get both tangible and intangible products without leaving home. The fast development of mobile apps, however, made it difficult for elders over 65 to understand and learn, and the physical condition of elders presents barriers to operating new technologies. Overall, the lack of accessible design on mobile apps has caused elders to not have the equal opportunity to obtain information and enjoy the same conveniences as other age groups; and new technologies have gradually made the older generation feel abandoned. In the past six months, I conducted a competitive analysis of the current situation of using mobile apps by the elderly to gain a broad view on the user experience of mobile apps for elders. I designed and distributed a questionnaire survey among members of the Yakima Serious Table Tennis Club to understand the barriers they encountered when using various types of mobile apps. I interviewed two retirees from different fields of employment and cultural backgrounds about their views on the usability of different kinds of mobile apps. Ultimately, referring to my collected data and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1, I analyzed possible changes that could be made by some popular apps to improve the accessibility for elders. I created interface templates of an accessible mobile social media for elders using Adobe Experience Design; then I edited it to a final version while doing usability tests on the templates. The conclusions from this research could be used to help design applications that are suitable for more age groups, and to ultimately make society more inclusive by letting elders have equal opportunity to enjoy new technologies.