Four PhD students, Orla Putnam, Sayoko Kawabata, Soomin Kim, and Rachana Gangwani, were recently awarded the Department of Health Sciences Research Excellence Awards and presented their work at the Department’s April Research Forum. Each year these awards recognize PhD students in the DHS “who showcase research excellence in their wider academic and professional communities.”
Putnam is a fourth-year PhD candidate in the Speech and Hearing Sciences program. Her research involves characterizing what autism looks like in people who are assigned female at birth using language processing, eye tracking, and qualitative methods. She will use the award funds to support the dissemination of her research by supporting her travel costs to conferences.
“I am so honored to be receiving this award, and it feels wonderful to be recognized for my research,” said Putnam. Once she completes her PhD, Putnam’s goals are to pursue postdoctoral training in language processing and other methods of characterizing communication and establish her own research lab at a university.
Kawabata is a PhD candidate in the Occupational Science program and pursues a research focus on the occupation of play for children and youth in a historically Black neighborhood in Hillsborough, NC. She is conducting ethnographic research in this neighborhood that has experienced many immigrant families moving into its affordable housing.
“I am collaborating with a resident-led community watch group to conduct the study,” said Kawabata. “I am interested in describing and exploring how play for youth in this community is shaped through socio-historical elements and how play contributes to community cohesion.”
She plans to use the funds for research dissemination and to present at various conferences. Kawabata aspires to make use of her expertise in community-based research that she has gained in the program, and bridge that experience with the Japanese occupational science community and the rest of the world.
Gangwani is a fourth-year PhD student in the Human Movement Science program, and her research focuses on using multi-modal neuroimaging techniques to develop brain-based measures in individuals with neurological conditions across the lifespan. After completing her PhD, she hopes to secure a postdoctoral position to develop her expertise in neuroscience and neurorehabilitation.
“I’m thrilled and deeply appreciative to have received this award,” said Gangwani. “This recognition motivates me to further my research and academic pursuits, reinforcing my dedication to contributing meaningfully to the field of stroke rehabilitation.” She will use the funds to attend and present for the first time about her dissertation project at the American Society of Neurorehabilitation conference.
Kim is a third-year PhD student in the Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences. She studies aphasia and apraxia of speech, and is interested in discourse-based early differential diagnosis. She has used her funding to attend the Motor Speech Conference in San Diego, where she presented to her peers and colleagues.
“I was so surprised to receive this award – I did not expect to receive it, but at the same time, I was eager to hear back from the committee,” said Kim. “I am so thankful to the committee, my advisors, and myself, too, for persevering with the application.”
Kim’s goal is to better understand acquired neurological communication disorders. She wants to contribute to developing diagnostic methods that are less stressful for people with aphasia yet sensitive to the early differentiation of degenerative diseases.