Project HAPPIEST 2023 Cohort

Laila Batar

My name is Laila Batar, and I am pursuing a degree in Health, Society and Policy here at the University of Utah. I will be graduating in the Fall 2023 semester. My faculty mentor was Dr. Amanda Bakian, and my graduate student mentor was Mathilda Scott. I had an amazing experience in my lab. I was able to learn so much about environmental health, and I cannot wait to use my experience in my future endeavors. My favorite memory from this summer was being able to go to the Great Salt Lake with my cohort and being able to connect with the team more.

Andrew Clothier

My name is Andrew Clothier, and I plan to graduate in spring of 2024. I am majoring in Environmental and Sustainability Studies with an emphasis on air, water, and health, and minors in Earth Science and Geography. I had the wonderful opportunity of working with Dr. Amanda Bakian as my faculty mentor and Mathilda Scott as my graduate student training coordinator. My favorite memory for this summer was vising the Youth Resource Center as it helped me to better understand how that system functions and gave me to opportunity to help out a little. I think the most surprising thing I learned about research this summer was how often it is necessary to pivot in your research goals as things change. My project changed a few times because of data availability, but I think it turned out better in the end because of it.

Jacqueline Gomez

My name is Jacqueline Gomez. My major is Environmental and Sustainability Studies with a minor in Drawing. I expect to graduate in Spring 2024. This summer, my faculty mentors were Sara Grineski and Timothy W. Collins. My graduate mentor was Roger Renteria. My favorite memories from this summer were the field trips where I got to know my cohort better as well as the graduate mentors. Not only were the field trips fun, but I learned something from each one and explored places I had not gotten the chance to do so before. The most surprising thing I learned about conducting research during this summer was how much patience is required when you are working with big data and a system is not working as smoothly as you would think it would.

Fernanda Guzman

My name is Fernanda Guzman and I am a senior at the U double majoring in Health, Society, and Policy and Writing in Rhetoric Studies. I am also pursuing a minor in Pediatric Clinical Research and am on track to graduate in Spring of 2024. For this project, I had the honor of working along side my peer, Yulisa Padilla Fragosso, my graduate mentor, Dr. Meagan Ricks, and my faculty mentor, Dr. Jeff Rose. My favorite memory from this summer was collaborating with the Volunteers of America at their Youth Resource Center. I learned a lot about their center and how it strives to help homeless youth. My peer and I also got to know some of their residents while conducting research, which was a special moment. The most surprising thing I learned while conducting research this summer was that the students and faculty within this program were so welcoming. Coming into this program not having experience with research, I was nervous. As the summer went on, I felt more and more confident in my abilities due to the safe and inspiring environment that I was in.

Michael Joyfull Komigi

My name is Michael Joyfull Komigi. I am majoring in Urban Ecology and Environmental and Sustainability Studies. I will be graduating in Spring 2025. In this summer research experience, I worked with Dr. Tabitha Benney and Dr. Brett Clark as my faculty mentors. I also worked with Jordan Giese, who was our graduate student training coordinator. Hiking to the Great Salt Lake and Lake Blanche were the most memorable memories I made this summer. The beauty of nature was a memory that will not only be documented on my phone or camera, but also in my mind forever. In remains as a reflection and contemplation about my relationship and responsibility towards nature. During my research this summer, I was amazed by the pattern of suffering faced by Indigenous people all over the world. As a part of an Indigenous tribe in West Papua, I have also faced oppressions, such as the lack of education, marginalization, depopulation, discrimination, and many other issues. But as I am getting involved in this research, which required me to dig more into Native American cultures and history in North America, I found that we as indigenous people had lived a similar experience both in the past and present. Working with another Indigenous student on this project also led to me to learn about how this problem is also faced by Indigenous communities in South America. In South America, they are fighting for their forests and land, again one of the struggles my own tribe experienced very recently. This solidarity and shared history with other Indigenous people gave me renewed strength. While we may have faced similar patterns of discrimination in the past, we now have the knowledge and the ability to change this going forward. This gives me hope for the future for all Indigenous people of the world.

Yulisa Padilla

My name is Yulisa Padilla. I graduated in spring of 2023 from the University of Utah as a Sociology major with minors in Business and in Health. During my time with HAPPIEST, I worked with faculty mentor, Dr. Jeff Rose, and graduate student training coordinator, Meagan Ricks, both from the department of parks, recreation, and tourism within the college of health. My favorite memory from this summer was getting to conduct interviews at the Men's Resource Center and Youth Resource Center and listening to the stories of the people living in these places. The most surprising thing I learned about conducting researching this summer was how much your research question can change throughout the course of your project depending on the data you're able to gather and analyze. 

Kevin Ramos

My name is Kevin Ramos and I’m an undergraduate in the Department of Geography studying Geographic Information Science. I expect to graduate in December 2023! Summer 2023 was my third time participating in the HAPPIEST program. I had the honor to work with Dr. Sara Grineski, Dr. Tim Collins, and Roger Renteria. Our summer research involved creating a dataset on present and historical US EPA Superfund sites dating back to the 1850s. These data can help future environmental health research by providing historical insight into the spatial distribution of hazardous environmental exposures.  I will be continuing this research project and am excited to see if parents’ distance from a Superfund site correlates with cases of intellectual disability in their children. My favorite summer memory was simply going into the workspace and problem-solving with my team. There were lots of laughs and good memories in our workspace. One of the most surprising things I learned as a researcher this summer is that the city of Murray was once home to the largest lead smelter.

Cindy Diaz Rey

My name is Cindy Diaz Rey and I am a senior triple majoring in Political Science, Latin American Studies, and Art History. I am also doing a minor in Anthropology. My academic emphasis focuses on Indigenous issues and education. I will graduate in Spring 2024. During the summer of 2023, I worked with Dr. Tabitha M. Benney, Dr. Brett Clark, and PhD Candidate Jordan Giese. Our research focused on two projects investigating environmental justice and education in Native American communities. My favorite memory throughout the program was visiting the Natural History Museum of Utah’s “Native Voices” exhibit as it closely relates to my academic interests and the project I worked on during the summer. The most surprising thing I learned was the lack of scholarship and often limited data and resources available to research environmental injustices in rural and tribal communities, which reinforced my determination to continue pursuing research on Indigenous issues.