Our “Project CHROMA Personnel” series in Archways highlights the key researchers behind the Rice ARCHES Initiative.
Russell Ku
This month Dr. Melia Bonomo from the Department of Bioengineering interviews our Project Coordinator for Project CHROMA.
Last week I had the opportunity to speak with our Project Coordinator, Russell Ku, about his background and involvement with Project CHROMA in the Biobehavioral Mechanisms Explaining Disparities BMED Lab. Russell is local from Katy, TX and graduated from Rice University with his B.A. in Psychology in December 2021. He started as Project Coordinator this past July, but Russell isn’t new to the BMED Lab — he’s been a research assistant for Project CHROMA since Spring 2021.
As Project Coordinator, Russell handles the administrative duties of the project and oversees the day-to-day activities. He’s also in charge of training new new research assistants and delegating tasks. On the recruitment side of the project, he distributes flyers, organizes community recruitment events, explains the study details to potential participants, and screens for eligibility. For participants that are recruited to the study and confirmed eligible, Russell helps to prepare for their study visits, run their visits, and take care of the logistics and supplies for the music class that participants in the intervention group attend for 6-weeks.
As the coordinator, he is also responsible for communicating with the team and collaborators about study updates. Finally, he helps with data management, which includes organizing, cleaning, and preparing data for future analyses.
Group shot from a recent Project CHROMA coffee shop outing. From left to right, Sarah Roberts, Taylor Stowers, Lydia Wu, Vincent Lai, Amara Anyanwu, Russell Ku. Not pictured: Robin Whitehead.
When asked about his favorite part of being Project Coordinator, Russell said that it’s seeing how much participants enjoy their experience in the music classes, especially those who were initially hesitant about it. Participants really support each other and work as a collaborative team throughout the class. He’s also glad to work with such a friendly and supportive team at the BMED lab, especially the amazing, dedicated undergraduate and graduate researchers of Project CHROMA!
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Our “Project CHROMA Personnel” series in Archways highlights the key researchers behind the Rice ARCHES Initiative.
Vincent Lai
This month Vincent Lai, who previously worked with Project CHROMA as the Project Coordinator, reflects on his experiences as part of the team.
Before joining Project CHROMA, I had been part of the BMED Lab for about two years. I first stepped into Dr. Fagundes’s lab as an undergraduate student, unsure about what “doing research” entailed. I was excited and nervous to explore that side of my academic journey, and those same feelings resurfaced when I started with CHROMA.
I joined CHROMA in the summer of 2021, and it was a pivotal time for the study. During this time, we resumed regular study activities, including in-person visits with our participants. Despite being nervous at first, I found that I was able to quickly got into the flow of things. I met and worked with an amazing team of undergraduate and graduate researchers. We got to work closely with members of the Houston community who were passionate about our work and helping others. Most rewarding was seeing how much our participants learned and grew during the music class.
All smiles from the CHROMA team! Pictured, from left to right: Lydia Wu, Russell Ku, Amara Anyanwu, Vincent Lai, Victoria Lee, and Sarah Roberts.
I will be returning to the BMED lab as Dr. Fagundes’s graduate student, and while there will be many more projects and research directions to explore, Project CHROMA will always have a special place in my heart. My time with CHROMA taught me so much about the ins and outs of doing research and allowed me to work with and support so many wonderful people.
Whether you’re interested in taking part in the study or someone looking for research experience, give us a chance! If you’re looking for a supportive and collaborative environment to explore your interest in psychological research, then the BMED lab might just be the place for you.
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Our “Tools of the Trade” series in Archways highlights the research technology and methodologies used by the Rice ARCHES Initiative.
Measuring Social/Emotional Wellbeing
This week Sophie Clayton, a Research Assistant in the BMED Lab, tells us about social and emotional wellbeing and how these are assessed in Project CHROMA.
When evaluating how effective an intervention is, measuring an individual’s wellbeing (or change in wellbeing) is essential. Individual differences result in diverse emotions and reactions; the wide variability in humans makes assessments difficult to standardize and to apply to all possible subjects. Social and emotional wellbeing assessments, as they are used today, work to make sure researchers ask the right questions to receive answers that measure the same general idea across many individuals.
Social well-being is often defined as an individual’s ability to acquire necessary resources and to coexist peacefully in communities with room for advancement.
Emotional well-being relates to how an individual can handle stressful situations, showing their resilience and ability to generate positive feelings.
Image by Wokandapix from Pixabay.
Assessments should be structured to ask simple questions that have straightforward answers. In many assessments, subjects are given statements or descriptions and asked to rate how relevant the items are to their current state. These statements could include sentences like “I feel content” or even words like “happy” or “stressed,” and possible responses could range from “Not like me at all” to “Very much like me.”
As mentioned, these types of assessments measure current states of wellbeing. This allows researchers to monitor changes in current states across a period of time, which would account for individuals’ changes based on daily factors. Social and emotional wellbeing assessments taken for a period of time before an intervention and a period of time after an intervention would allow researchers to measure an increase or decrease in average responses from subjects, suggesting how effective their study was.
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Our “Wellness Resources” series in Archways highlights outside initiatives supported by Rice ARCHES researchers.
Inside the Chrysalis
This month Dr. Michelle Quist is invited by Dr. Angie LeRoy, a post-doctoral Research Fellow on our team in the Department of Psychological Sciences, to discuss the mental wellness podcast that they are working on together.Dr. Quist is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Psychology at Penn State University and Founder of the Inside the Chrysalis podcast.
Have you ever felt the urge to fundamentally change in
positive ways? To outgrow bad habits and establish positive ones? We all have
at one level or another, but we always run up against the same problem – growth
is hard.
We learn in elementary school about the metamorphosis of the
caterpillar; the ravenous insect that cocoons itself inside a chrysalis before
eventually emerging as a beautiful butterfly. For us, this process becomes the
symbol of the growth and transformation for which we all strive. The aspect we
never discuss, however, is the magnitude of what is happening inside the
chrysalis. The caterpillar has to break itself down to its most basic elements
before reforming as an entirely new creature. That messy, chaotic process is
the inspiration for our podcast, Inside
the Chrysalis.
The creators of Inside
the Chrysalis are four social psychologists, people who study humans and
how they relate to each other. Our goal is to use our expertise to shed some
light on the transformation process and to help people connect with each other
in the context of shared experiences. Throughout our first season, we will
discuss common issues such as achieving an important milestone and then feeling
unexpected dissatisfaction or persistent imposter syndrome, or the anxiety that
can arise from comparing yourselves to other people. We invite people from a
variety of expertise and industry to candidly discuss what research has to say
about our collective experience, establishing a place for pause, growth,
reflection, and connection.
Importance of Regulating Stress, Social Support, and Sleep during COVID-19
A collection of news articles featuring Project CHROMA Principle Investigator, Dr. Christopher Fagundes, on the importance of regulating stress, social support, and sleep to make you less prone to COVID-19.
We hope everyone is regulating their stress, social support and sleep this weekend! Check out this piece from Discover Magazine and Dr. Fagundes about how these factors can affect the immune system.https://t.co/c8CXSVbbw4
Additionally, he was featured in the Houston Chronicle, where he continued to offer tips for people to follow. We’re thankful for the opportunity to spread awareness in the Houston community during this time. Read his article here: https://t.co/9Jq5v1hqsN
As we continue to adjust to the ongoing COV-19 situation and the new Stay Home – Work Safe order, Dr. Fagundes shares some tips to mitigate the risk factors for COV-19 on Forbes.
Dr. Fagundes shares how stress and loneliness can impact your risk of getting COV-19 & some ways we can mitigate the harmful effects of loneliness and stress during this critical time – an extremely important topic as we adjust to the current pandemic. https://t.co/TRd8sR8QoTpic.twitter.com/TK3L5R0vJq
What do stress, loneliness and lack of sleep have in common? They are all factors that can weaken your immune system and make you more susceptible to COVID-19, according to Rice University’s Christopher Fagundes, an associate professor in the department of psychological sciences who studies the link between mental and immune health.
Chris Fagundes. Photo by Jeff Fitlow.
“In my field, we have conducted a lot of work to look at what predicts who gets colds and different forms of respiratory illnesses, and who is more susceptible to getting sick,” Fagundes said. “We’ve found that stress, loneliness and lack of sleep are three factors that can seriously compromise aspects of the immune system that make people more susceptible to viruses if exposed. Also, stress, loneliness and disrupted sleep promote other aspects of the immune system responsible for the production of proinflammatory cytokines to over-respond. Elevated proinflammatory cytokine production can generate sustained upper respiratory infection symptoms.”
And while this previous research has centered on different cold and upper respiratory viruses, he said “there is no doubt” that these effects would be the same for COVID-19.
Previous studies have indicated that healthy, nonimmunocompromised people who spend less time around others and are exposed to the cold virus are significantly more likely to get sick and experience worse symptoms than those people who get out and socialize.
Fagundes said this can be explained by the way positive emotions buffer against stressors and evoke a favorable immune response, even while extroverted individuals are more likely to be around more people, possibly those who are carrying germs that could make them sick.
It’s an interesting paradox during the global COVID-19 pandemic, Fagundes said, when people are strongly encouraged and in some places required to stay at home to prevent the further spread of the virus.
Another major factor that impacts immune health is sleep deprivation, Fagundes said, which he noted has been demonstrated over and over in previous study of the topic.
“The overwhelming consensus in the field is that people who do not consistently get a good night’s sleep — 7-9 hours for adults, with variation on what is optimal — makes a person more likely to get sick,” he said.
Fagundes said that although alcohol use, certain jobs and other factors make some people more likely to have poor sleep, psychological stress has a tremendous impact on a person’s quality of sleep.
“It’s important also to note that when we talk about stress, we mean chronic stress taking place over several weeks, not a single stressful incident or a few days of stress,” Fagundes said. “An isolated stressful incident does not seem to make a person more susceptible to a cold or the flu.”
However, even absent of poor sleep, chronic stress alone is disruptive enough to the immune system to make people more likely to get sick, Fagundes said.
“Without question, previous work on this topic clearly demonstrates that chronic stress affects our immune system in a way that makes us more susceptible to viruses and colds,” he said. “Just think about college students who get sick after weeks of stress while studying for a big exam.”
Fagundes said the best ways to mitigate the harmful health effects of loneliness and stress during the COVID-19 pandemic are to stay connected with others through communication, particularly video calls.
“There is some evidence that it may be better to video conference versus having a regular phone call to reduce feelings of isolation,” he said. “There’s something about chatting with people and having them visually ‘with’ you that seems to be more of a buffer against loneliness.”
Fagundes also noted that it is important to keep a routine during stressful times.
“This will regulate your sleep and allow you to focus on immediate goals and plans,” he said. “In turn, you will overthink things less and feel more accomplished.”
And if you find yourself worrying nonstop about the situation, it can be helpful to set aside specific “worry times,” Fagundes said.
“People often worry and overthink things because their brain is telling them there is something to solve,” he said. “However, it can be counterproductive after a while. A good technique is to set aside 15 minutes a day where you allow yourself to worry, preferably with a pen and paper. After that, you aren’t allowed to think about the issue for the rest of the day.”
Fagundes said it is also sometimes helpful for people to identify inaccurate thoughts that reinforce negative thinking and emotions.
“People often convince themselves that a situation is much worse than it is by telling themselves things that are not true,” he said. “We call these cognitive distortions. For example, it is common to catastrophize a situation by convincing themselves that the worst-case scenario is the most likely scenario. When people learn to identify and then refute these thoughts, they often feel much better.”
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Our “Project CHROMA Personnel” series in Archways highlights the key researchers behind the Rice ARCHES Initiative.
Kristi Parker, M.Ed.
This month Nyla Vela from the Department of Psychological Sciences interviews our Lab Manager in the Biobehavioral Mechanisms Explaining Disparities (BMED) Lab.
Earlier this week I got to sit down with our very own, Kristi Parker, the Lab Manager here at the BMED Lab, and she gave me the ins and outs of what its really like to oversee the incredible projects we have here.
Kristi, a California native who got her master’s in education at the University of Southern California, found herself drawn to the BMED lab due to her interest in Psychology. She says that she is very fascinated with the work the lab is doing regarding connecting the mind and the body.
Before we were lucky enough to have her however, she actually worked as a paralegal for 5 years!
Further, she began to tell me about what her job entails. In her words, she takes care of a lot of administrative work. From scheduling and working with grants to overseeing progress made by all the different projects under the lab’s wing, Kristi could be seen as the glue that keeps this lab together. Serving as an immediate liaison between Dr. Christopher Fagundes, our primary investigator, and the rest of the lab, we are always well informed and on top of our immediate goals as a team.
When asked about what she enjoys about her job, Kristi told me that she really enjoys the participant interaction aspect of the lab. She detailed a story about one participant who, when Project Heart was still doing home visits, would bake cookies and tell stories every visit.
Evidently, Kristi is a caring and hard-working figure here at the BMED Lab. If it weren’t for her, our lab would simply fall apart, so we are very grateful that her interest in learning about others landed her here with us!
