We got our projects and had some awesome cake :)

Hi all,

Today I will be addressing my new project that I am assigned to for the summer, elevator pitches, and BLU boy chocolates.

Remote Asynchronous Participatory Design:

Above is the title of the research I will be conducting this summer alongside a fellow REU student and mentored by Dr. Patrick Shih and PhD Student Fernando Maestre. The research I will be doing will be focused on different stigmatized groups, specifically those with HIV. So far we are still in part of the recruiting phase and we are doing this by trying to recruit participants to be part of an online community, such as Facebook. Through these forums we hope to find out different ways to be able to help these stigmatized groups/individuals. We will collect the different data we gather from the groups and analyze it. If we find anything that seems significant and plausible we will attempt to make it into a prototype.

Next step is that I have been sent some relatable work to the project and I will be taking some notes and summarizing it!

Elevator Pitches:

Another part of our day today was that we each had to present an elevator pitch about our new project, I was a bit nervous but I got through it!

Here is an example of a draft I created for my pitch:

Hi, my name is Julia Dunbar and I am a senior cs major and this summer I am working for the ProHealth REU at IU-Bloomington. My project for the summer is focusing on different stigmatized groups, with a more specific look into HIV patients. We are focusing on these stigmatized groups because they are more likely to use online communities as a forum for help, because it gives them the sense of anonymity. We will be gathering data on these groups in online forums and later analyzing it in hopes to create a prototype model of something to help facilitate the needs of these groups. ย 

CAKE:

So, I will not lie I have a weakness for sweets :/. During our elevator pitches today we were given BLU boy chocolate cake and it was very delicious! Here is a link to the website and you should check it out if you are ever in Bloomington!

Until next time…

Julia ๐Ÿ™‚