It’s been a busy winter semester here at GREMAP! The last few months have been packed with conferences, grant submissions, exams, and other deadlines, on top of our ongoing work on different research projects and papers. However, we also have many wins, accomplishments, and milestones achieved by our students and staff to celebrate!
Conferences, posters, and presentations
In March, our team had the opportunity to present at multiple UM conferences and symposiums, including the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention (IFIP) Annual Research Day, the Injury Prevention Center (IPC) Research Symposium, and the UMAging Initiative Symposium (UMAging), which is an annual conference that highlights research from aging research centers across the University.
IFIP & IPC. Research Staff Alejandro Rodriguez-Putnam and PhD student Omar Pedraza co-presented their work characterizing collective and community violence in NVDRS at both the IFIP Research Day and the IPC Symposium.
Left: Omar presenting their poster at IFIP; Right: Alejandro posing next to their poster at IPC.
In addition, Stella Chang, who is a PhD student in the School of Information working with Dr. Viktoryia Kalesnikava, presented their work identifying Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) suicide decedents in NVDRS at the IFIP research day.
Left: Stella and Viktoryia next to Stella’s poster at IFIP.
Dr. Eskira Kahsay, who is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher in ISR, presented her dissertation work at the IPC Symposium poster session, for which she was awarded the IPC Excellence in Research Award!
Left: Eskira receiving the research award for her poster; Right: Eskira pictured with her award and poster at IPC.
Lastly, Omar and first-year PhD student Chuwen (Cullen) Zhong co-presented their work on the relationship between social connection, depression, and fall risk at the IPC poster session (pictured on the left).
UMAging. Many of our team members attended the UMAging Symposium, which was a great opportunity to connect with our colleagues and collaborators from different research centers and departments and hear about the work they are doing. As a MCUAAAR faculty member, Dr. Mezuk gave a research talk on “Sense-making in the Acute Aftermath of Older Adult Suicide Deaths: An Application of Large Language Models”, which highlights key findings from our analysis exploring meaning-making in NVDRS data, which is led by Dr. Kalesnikava.
Viktoryia (left) with Research Staff members Lily Johns (center) and Linh Dang (right) at the the UMAging symposium lunch.
Omar and Cullen presenting their poster at the UMAging poster session.
NSAL 25-year follow up
We have also been busy with the NSAL project! The team is gearing up to go into the field later this year and are focusing on finalizing the questionnaire, building relationships with community partners, and working on recruitment and outreach.
Earlier this semester, we had the opportunity to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with an event focused on the NSAL follow-up survey, entitled “Extending the Legacy: Innovations of the 25-Year Follow-up of the National Survey of American Life”. This MLK-day event featured presentations by NSAL project leadership including Dr. Mezuk, Project Director Dr. Deborah Robinson, Expert Advisory Board member Dr. Belinda Tucker, and Stephanie Chardoul, who is the Director of Survey Research Operations at ISR. We were also very fortunate to be joined by interviewers who conducted fieldwork in the original NSAL survey (fielded in 2001), who led a panel discussion drawing from their experiences and expertise.
Above [left]: NSAL interviewers and Stephanie Chardoul during the panel discussion; Above [right]: Dr. Robinson presenting at the event; Below: Project leadership posing in the James S. Jackson atrium at ISR at the reception.
This event was also featured in an article for The Michigan Daily, which you can read here.
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