Student of the Month: Insight from Kaitlyn Adams

Mona Shadded, Pharm.D. Candidate of 2027 

In her published article, "The Effect of Urban Heat Islands on Pediatric Asthma Exacerbation: How Race Plays a Role,” Kaitlyn Adams explores the combination of urban heat, environmental racism, and asthma susceptibility in relation to better understanding the relationship between Black children and asthma-related negative health outcomes.

This research project came together during the infamous Covid epidemic. As she was pursuing the dual degree PharmD/MPH, Kaitlyn found herself learning more and more about the social determinants of health through her capstone project and eventual mock research proposal. Her interest in health disparities and health outcomes were naturally piqued. 

The dual degree gave her the means to pursue a research project on a larger scale. 

Kaitlyn thoroughly enjoyed the statistical aspect of her research exploring the extensive databases of NYC. She extracted data from multiple websites, which validated her initial theories. Seeing her hypotheses manifest as tangible data was nothing short of thrilling.

The difficult part of her journey was also, ironically, the data collection. As easy as it was to obtain the data, there were simply an overwhelming amount of data to sort through. This required additional interpretation from skills learned in P3 Biostatistics course. Needless to say, that was not easy. 

Kaitlyn would advise students to begin their research projects by reaching out to professors and brainstorming ideas they’re excited about. Expect many trials and errors. If you are a P3, it is certainly not too early. You want enough time to see your ideas come to fruition. 

Kaitlyn makes a compelling argument that a research project is just as important as an internship and/or job. At the very least, you gain work experience through your rotations. There aren’t as many experiences that offer the uniqueness of hands-on research. It provides ample supplemental knowledge that is difficult to find elsewhere. 

However, Kaitlyn does not want to downplay the load that accompanies research. Partly because the project included just her and her advisor, this was no easy feat. That’s why if you’re going to commit to do a research project, you want to have a topic in which you are strongly interested. You have to decide who will participate in the project with you, depending on your personality and skill set.