University Scholars Program

I am conducting a scoping review of Culturally Competent and Equitable School-Based Universal Mental Health Literacy Curricula for K-12 Education with an amazing research team as my university scholars project. I'm so honored to be able to work with the amazing women on my team and learn so much from them every time we meet, and I am so excited to do this project with them. The team consists of Dr. Ragnhildur Bjarnadottir, an assistant professor in nursing at UF (who is actually my mom's old student from Iceland), Dr. Bergljót Gyða Guðmundsdóttir, an associate professor in education at the University of Iceland (whom I met when I was doing a presentation at the Ministry of Children and Education in Iceland), and Brittany Kester, and amazing education librarian at UF that I have been meeting with on zoom to learn about research since spring 2022. As this is my passion, I spend a lot of time on this project, but at minimum, I would say I dedicate at least 10 hours a week towards this assignment. I always have two 1.5-hour meetings on Tuesdays with Brittany and Gyða, and then I write the protocol, do the abstract reviews, create the data collection template, and manage the team meetings and schedules. But I will be able to dedicate a lot more time to the project this summer, that I could not be more excited about.

Dog Training

I have a seven-month-old puppy named Nala, with whom I'm taking dog training classes. Nala loves our teacher, Albert, and meeting all of the other dogs. We have learned so much since starting the puppy training in January, and the class equips me with the skills necessary to care for Nala to the best of my abilities. She is growing so fast and is very clever, so it has been a joy watching her grow and get more comfortable in environments that she was initially intimidated by or found overwhelming such as crowded spaces. I like the most that I'm able to build a stronger connection with Nala through the training and that I can spend this time with her. I attend the training once a week and will continue to do so until the end of June. I'm so proud of my Bean, and here are some pictures for us.