Juliana K
- Research Program Mentor

MPH candidate at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)

Expertise

Mental health research, cognitive science, public health, health policy, disability studies

Bio

Hello! I have many passions related to health and well-being, which is why I am currently pursuing a Master's of Public Health. I plan to be a health policy analyst following graduation so that I can utilize my research skills to promote public health and reduce health disparities. I have 4 years of experience conducting psychiatric research for people with schizophrenia, Alzheimer's Disease, bipolar disorder, or depression. My research has revolved around themes of personalized medicine approaches using predictive biomarkers, pharmacologically-augmented cognitive training, and neural network dysregulation. Outside of academia, I love to play pick-up soccer and talk with my housemates for hours about nothing in particular. I also love the idea of creating DIY projects more than actually doing them but have managed to complete a few art and furniture projects during the pandemic.

Project ideas

Project ideas are meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.

Availability of Mental Health Services Over time in the U.S.

Use publicly available datasets (for instance, the National Mental Health Services Survey) to analyze the availability of mental health services in a U.S. state over time. Plot the type of service offered and analyze the demographics of people served. How does availability of services for children compare to adults and older adults? What proportion of facilities accept Medicaid/Medicare/public funds (making services accessible to low income populations)?

Coding skills

Some experience using Matlab, C++, Psychopy, and R Studio

Teaching experience

While a Research Associate at UC San Diego Health, I mentored 3 undergraduate students who assisted in our research. I taught them skills in data collection for psychiatric research, data entry and management, and participant supervision for clinical trials. I felt it was important not only to teach them what to do, but why we were doing each task. I gave them background information about our studies first so that the specific training would make more sense later.