{"id":150,"date":"2020-05-21T23:55:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-21T23:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stage.wp.nau.edu\/aspirations-campaign\/voluptatem-maxime-aliquam-placeat-et\/"},"modified":"2023-03-06T16:15:40","modified_gmt":"2023-03-06T16:15:40","slug":"graduate-student-research-public-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/graduate-student-research-public-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding the story in the numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"is-style-leadIn\">Taylor Lane finds comfort in the certainty of numbers. She experiences joy in the corresponding data analysis. And when numbers and data change the narratives in the real world, she realizes her goal of helping others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Working with <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.nau.edu\/person\/hd84\">Dirk de Heer<\/a>, Associate Professor of Health Sciences, Taylor seeks to understand how exercise programs can be implemented to fight diabetes, obesity, and other health issues, especially in traditionally underserved populations. She entered NAU\u2019s inaugural <a href=\"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/ih-phd\/\">Interdisciplinary Health PhD<\/a> two years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe reward can be extremely gratifying when you have someone who hasn\u2019t really exercised since they&#8217;ve been diagnosed with cancer because they&#8217;ve been really tired,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd now they\u2019re losing weight and they\u2019re feeling better and their fitness is improving, and you\u2019re a part of that. That has more reward than you would ever see sitting in front of a computer running statistical tests.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Taylor, who is also working on an <a href=\"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/math\/certificates\/applied-statistics-certificate\/\">Applied Statistics certificate<\/a> from the <a href=\"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/math\/\">Department of Mathematics and Statistics<\/a>, has had experience with several academic units on campus. She credits <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.nau.edu\/person\/sdb3\">Steven Barger<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/psychological-sciences\/steven-barger\/\">,<\/a> Professor of Psychological Sciences, for kickstarting her love of population health data and how to make sense of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. de Heer has grants to collaborate with organizations such as Fit Kids of Arizona and the <a href=\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/nacp\/\">Native American Cancer Prevention Program<\/a> that are tailor-made for using Taylor&#8217;s skills and preparing her for a career in health industry research. Her dissertation stemmed from work at Fit Kids; Taylor is researching excess summer weight gain in children who are enrolled in pediatric weight management programs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img src=\"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/179\/2020\/05\/8079_Taylor_Lane_20191118-1-scaled-e1594256714501.jpg\" alt=\"Taylor Lane speaks with another woman while consulting paperwork\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cEvery department that I\u2019ve worked in on campus has a wide range of intelligent and helpful faculty members that I think are dedicated to helping students learn,\u201d the Tucson native said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere are a ton of research opportunities to be able to help different communities of people live better lives.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Interdisciplinary Health PhD student Taylor Lane aims to impact lives through analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":532,"featured_media":699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[16,17,13],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/532"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5496,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions\/5496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legacy.nau.edu\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}