Why did you enroll in this course (motivation, prior interests)?

I enrolled in this course because I wanted to learn more about how to properly do research and gain more research experience while also being able to see my work actually being impactful to others. I knew I wanted to do this course after reading the description of the Culturally Appropriate Birthing Practices project because I come from Iran and I am also a part of an ethno-religion that is heavily discriminated against in Iran, so I felt very sympathetic towards the women in Philippines not being given the culturally appropriate birthing beds that they deserve. So I am motivated to do this research to hopefully be able to help in the construction of these beds and give these women what they need and hopefully make it available to many hospitals throughout Eastern Asia. I was previously interested in doing the Iacocca Program Internship of doing research abroad, but I stopped my application after I found out about this great program because it has great team building, making an impact, and being a year-long research program all wrapped into one amazing program, so I am very excited to be one of the first students starting this research and to be a part of this wonderful program.

 How do you envision this course making you a better (your major) student?

I envision this course making me a better Molecular Biology major student by teaching me about how to stay dedicated to a research no matter how good or bad the results of the test runs are as well as how to properly do research, which I believe are very important for a student aspiring to go possibly into the research career field. I also believe this course could make me a better student by teaching me more about how to properly interact with people in their respective countries and to be able to learn how to effectively ask interview questions in order to get the best data possible for our projects. This teaching makes this an advantageous course as I am also minoring in Marketing and Psychology, so acquiring experience in how to effectively understand others and meet the needs of the people, are also great at making me a better Psychology and Marketing minor student. Therefore, from the goals of this course, I can envision myself succeeding in gaining meaningful experiences and information that can help me succeed as a student with a Molecular Biology major with minors in Psychology and Marketing.

The World Health Organization estimates that over one billion people who need eyeglasses do not have access to them. The vast majority of these people live in developing countries like Kenya where there is barely one optometrist per one million people. Given the high poverty levels, access to eyeglasses is almost nonexistent. Lack of proper eyeglasses severely impacts people and their livelihoods by decreasing their productivity at work, limiting or eliminating new opportunities, affecting their quality of life, deteriorating their general health and possibly leading to (preventable) blindness. What solution do you propose to address this problem? 

The limited amount of optometrists and lack of proper eyeglasses for millions of people in Kenya is a serious problem. A solution I propose would be to become partners with eyeglass charity organizations that aim to distribute eyeglasses to developing countries and we could help with setting up multiple free eye clinics worked by trained volunteers to examine who needs eyeglasses and who does not. We could begin by becoming partners with charity organizations such as Eyes on Africa and Vision for a Nation, who distribute eyeglasses through donations,  and Lions International, which is an organization that can train volunteers and provides grants to eye care projects. By using the resources provided by these organizations, we could create eye clinics in which trained volunteers can examine patients and could put the patients in a waiting list of those who need eye treatments and glasses the fastest, in order to be able to help those in dire need of vision treatments in the quickest way possible. The project could begin by first becoming partners with these organizations, then gathering data on which regions have the most visually impaired residents, and creating a trial eye clinic in the area with the most visually impaired people by square miles. The goal would be to help as many residents get eye exams and gain their prescribed eye glasses through the charity organizations and if the eye clinic is successful in helping the residents’ health, then more eye clinics can be created with the help of grants from Lions International in more low-income and densely populated areas with visually impaired individuals. Furthermore, the goal of the project would be to also teach the public about how to take care of their eye health and how to perform simple eye exams at home during the time that they are at the eye clinic. This will help more people become aware of taking care of their eyes and will hopefully be able to spread to others through word of mouth or other ways of spreading news about properly taking care of their eyes and going to the eye clinics for eye check ups, which can help many who did not know that they needed treatments to take care of their eyes and go to the free eye clinics or prevent them from worsening their eyes’ health in the future.