How long have you worked at UAMS? How long have you been in your current position?
I have been involved with Dr. Sam Atcherson on various lab projects for the last 5 years. I began working in his lab at the same time I began working on my Doctor of Audiology degree which I completed in spring 2021.
What is your favorite part of the job?
I have always enjoyed having large and complex problems to work on. I particularly enjoy the challenge of setting a research goal and then working on overcoming all the obstacles that arise as progress towards the goal is made. That said, working in Dr. Atcherson’s lab was a great way to gain experience doing exactly that!
Are there any challenges?
Certainly. When we set a goal for a given study or project we always have a good idea of what we would like to accomplish, but any number of obstacles might present themselves along the way. The fact that we don’t always know what problems might arise, until they are staring us in the face, are a big part of the challenge. Sometimes we must put our heads together to ensure we can work through any complications without any major compromises.
How do you/your group handle problematic issues?
When we run into problems, we always do our best to communicate and make sure everyone is aware that something isn’t going right. From there it becomes a process of making sure we fully understand the problem.
For example, if we are having issues with our equipment in the lab, we must be prepared to spend a lot of time troubleshooting all the individual components and then fixing things as needed. Sometimes we can spend a whole day just trying to get all of our equipment working the way we need it to. That is just the way it goes sometimes.
How many projects do you work on annually?
Dr. Atcherson’s lab always has a least a few ongoing projects at any one time although that has changed recently due to COVID-19 impacts slowing research. Some projects will typically be Dr. Atcherson’s own studies and some are student projects for which he serves as an advisor.
How about after hours? What do you do for fun?
In my time off I enjoy lazy weekends with my cat “Lily”, disc golf, and video games.
What personal skill or hobby don’t most people know about you?
This is a little silly, but one of my superpowers is that I eat really fast. Everywhere I go people always comment upon how quickly I tend to eat my meals and that I should be in competitions. I think its pretty funny. Dr. Atcherson said that he thinks he’s started eating much faster subconsciously since he met me!
Any last thoughts on your position as a Graduate Research Assistant?
Research can be challenging and also very rewarding. It is really amazing to have opportunities to help solve real problems that we can then write about and share within our field and community.
Right now, I am writing the manuscript for a study we did involving a detailed survey of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Audiologists and Audiology Students. The questions encompassed a wide variety of topics. For example, we asked participants about their degree of hearing loss, what kind of hearing technology they use, and whether or not they choose to use any accommodations while in the classroom or clinic. Additionally, we collected demographic data to get an idea of everyone’s location. We had an amazing response to the survey and ended up with a ton of great data. Our plan is to share our general findings from the study first and then potentially go back and break down the data in other interesting ways.
Ideally, the information can be used by future audiology students and current professionals to help provide a better idea of how people are working around communication-related barriers in the clinic and classroom. This will not be the first survey of its kind, but it will very likely be the one with the greatest number of completed surveys.