Elisa (she/her/hers) is a senior in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences double majoring in English and Economics. Elisa's interest in research started in high school, when she was trying to find Young Adult novels to read that incorporated disability experience, but found there was a large gap that needed to be filled.
Since then, Elisa has worked on research through the Holster Scholars Program, where she analyzed the representation of disability in pop culture, specifically in film. She worked with the mentorship of Professor Brenda Brueggemann and incorporated research from a variety of different disciplines, including Disability Studies, psychology, sociology, history, and more. Elisa is working to get the manuscript based on this work published in disability-centric journals to be shared.
During her sophomore year, Elisa worked on a UConn IDEA Grant project where she interviewed type one diabetics about their social experiences. She worked on researching the experience of "passing," a phenomenon in the disability community, but one also present in other minority groups. Throughout this research, she was able to improve upon communication skills, conduct research spanning sociology, psychology, and economics.
She hopes to one day fill that gap in YA literature, and continue to advocate within the disability community. If you have any questions or concerns about how to get started in research, find a mentor, or anything else about research in general, she is excited to help out!
Student Research Blog Posts by Elisa: