About
I'm Kristen, a soon-to-be graduate at the University of Michigan. I'm a science enthusiast. I like trivia, books, and warm weather. I worked in research for three out of my four undergraduate years, on two different projects related to Epilepsy. This site is the culmination of my minor in writing, the place where I'm housing the project I worked on for the last semester of my college career along with an essay I wrote about how my writing has changed over the course of the minor. Now that I've gotten the boring introduction part out of the way, I can talk a little bit more about the goals of my capstone project and what inspired me to take it on.
I get asked a lot of questions about various topics in science. Even though I spent my four years at Michigan studying Neuroscience and I'm not pre-med, people ask me questions about symptoms they're experiencing and whether or not they should go to the doctor. As one of my favorite professors put it, when you're a scientist, it means something different to other people. It means that you are automatically an expert about every topic within science, whether or not you want to be.
I don't mind answering most questions (see above: science enthusiast) because I love the fact that people are curious about science and I love to share any knowledge I have with them. However, I've noticed that a lot of scientific topics that affect people's daily lives are poorly understood by my peers and the public in general. I was curious as to why this is, and about what we can do to help stop the spread of misinformation and better educate ourselves. To investigate this, I looked at a specific topic, genetically modified organisms, and analyzed the factors that shape public's knowledge and opinions about it. Click on The Project tab above to find out more.
Photo credit: Dr. Ron Holz