SRAPer: Jennifer Beiza
Home state: Colorado
Year in school: Junior
Plans after high school: Undecided
Jennifer Beiza enjoys critical thinking and problem solving.
These skills have been an asset to her as she works in the psychology
department with Dr. Ben Wilkowski, a professor in the Psychology department at
the University of Wyoming.
“My project is about the positive psychological outcomes of
aerobic exercise. Usually when we think about the benefits of exercise, we
think about how it affects the body. I thought
it would be interesting to see if aerobic exercise affects the mind and people’s
overall well-being, instead of just their physical health, ” says Jennifer.
The idea for this project came from Jennifer herself.
“Basically, she came up with the idea,” says Sarah Crowe, a
psychology graduate student working with Jennifer. “We started out by discussing
different topics in psychology at a general level before delving into any one
area in great detail. It took a bit of
trial and error at first, but she seemed to be especially interested in both
biological psychology and research on well-being. After looking through the previous
research on these topics, we noticed that there were still a lot of unanswered questions
and unresolved issues in the literature. Jennifer wanted to address some of
these in her own study and that’s where she came up with the idea for her
research proposal. “
Jennifer is enjoying her research, and she’s excited about
investigating how the two parts of her study correlate.
“I think it’s really interesting that there’s a connection
between mental processes and physical activity.” says Jennifer.
Jennifer’s SRAP project involves writing a proposal for a
future experiment. If Jennifer decides to participate in SRAP again next year,
she hopes to be able to continue working on her research.
“She’s doing a really great job,” says Sarah.
Jennifer will be presenting her research and findings on Friday, July 19th at the University of Wyoming Union along with the other SRAP particpants.
SRAP is a six-week long intensive research program based at the University of Wyoming and sponsored by Wyoming EPSCoR.
By Robin E. Rasmussen and Kali S. McCrackin
Photo by Robin E. Rasmussen
Photo by Robin E. Rasmussen
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