SRAP Student Spotlight: Hailey Molden and Inspiration

SRAPer: Hailey Molden

From: Nevada

Year in School: Senior

Plans after high school: go to college, probably in california

Hailey Molden is always looking for a challenge. That’s part of the reason her favorite subject in school is science.

“Math was pretty easy for me, so I like chemistry,” Hailey says. “I don’t really like English. I like math and science, but math isn’t that hard for me so I like science the best.”

This summer, however, Hailey’s love of chemistry is being challenged by a new scientific love: psychology. She has spent the summer working with Dr.David Estes, a developmental psychologist at the University of Wyoming, and psychology graduate student Alisa Estey during her time as a SRAPer.

“My project is on inspiration,” says Hailey. “There’s not really much on it, so we’re kind of the stepping stone to that. We’re focusing on the layperson’s perspective of inspiration.”

To understand and study this perspective, Hailey is using three items from a preliminary questionnaire.

“We have a questionnaire that we gave to undergraduate students in a psychology class,” Hailey says. “There were three different questions: What is your definition of inspiration? What is a specific time you were inspired? Name two people who inspire you.”

After gathering the data, Hailey analyzed and coded the responses. For many researchers, this is the most tedious part of a study, but Hailey doesn’t agree.

“I like entering data,” she says. “It is kind of weird, but it is my favorite part.”

As Hailey finishes SRAP and prepares for her final year of high school, she is looking ahead to college and what she will study. Six weeks ago, she would have said chemistry would be her major at a university, but now she is not so sure.

“My favorite subject was chemistry, but now I’m leaning towards psychology,” Hailey says. “My mentors, Alisa Estey and David Estes, are really getting me into it.”

On Friday, Hailey will present her research at the SRAP poster session and then a presentation will follow.

SRAP is a six-week long intensive research program based at the University of Wyoming and sponsored by Wyoming EPSCoR.

By Kali S. McCrackin
Photo by Robin E. Rasmussen