Samantha Martinez, BA, 2023 HEDCO Institute Scholar
Samantha is a senior majoring in Educational Foundations and minoring in Business Administration. During her time at UO, she was an undergraduate scholar at the HEDCO Institute and also worked at the Vivian Olum Child Development Center, the on-campus daycare for faculty and staff at the University of Oregon.
The HEDCO Institute Undergraduate Scholars Program gave her the opportunity to grow her understanding of the processes of connecting with all those involved in education, from teachers to policymakers to stakeholders, and support them through the use of research and evidence-based practices. After the program, Samantha was a research assistant working on a grant with Dr. Elizabeth Day, Research Assistant Professor at the HEDCO Institute, to better understand how research is actually used by interest holders.
"Samantha Martinez is filled with promise to become a leader in the field of education. Samantha was one of our inaugural scholars in our Undergraduate Scholars Program at the HEDCO Institute, and, as such, played a unique role in shaping the program for future scholars. Among many reasons, Samantha stood out from our applicant pool due to her interest in developing skills to effectively look for scholarly articles on matters of importance to her. She contributed significantly to our review of the academic literature on the four-day school weeks in K-12 schools, including a manuscript under review at a peer-reviewed journal on our findings and an online data dashboard being used by school districts to find research relevant to their contexts. I expect more of such accomplishments and contributions from Samantha to the field of education.”, says Sean Grant, PhD, who oversees the Undergraduate Scholars Program at the HEDCO Institute and nominated Samantha as a graduate to spotlight.
Samantha's plans after graduation are to attend UC Berkeley for her Masters in Education. She plans to teach for a few years and then transition into more leadership, administrative roles with the goal of one day working on a board of education and helping bridge the gap between research and practice.
Hana Dussan, BA, 2024 HEDCO Institute Scholar
Hana is a senior double majoring in communication disorders and sciences and linguistics. She was a part of UO's student newspaper, having written three cover stories and a number of book reviews during her time there. She hopes to pursue a career in Speech-Language Pathology, and eventually become a professor. By participating in the HEDCO Institute Undergraduate Scholars Program, Hana gained a better understanding of how to bridge the gap between researchers and practitioners, being mindful of the skills she can acquire so her future research is as accessible as possible. Hana also participated in a range of campus and extracurricular activities during her time at the UO.
“I worked for the Learner Corpus Research and Data Science Lab as a linguistic annotator, and the director of that lab is now my advisor on my linguistics honors thesis. Additionally, I am currently working for the Early Dual Language Development Lab as a research assistant. I have participated in ASL, NSSLHA, and the Dysphagia Journal club. I was an OSPIRG Students intern as well. The name of the student newspaper I worked for is the Daily Emerald, and my position was an Arts and Culture writer, where I wrote book reviews, recipes, and three cover stories.”
When asked about career interests, Hana replied, “I am interested in bridging the gap between researchers, practitioners, and the community in the field of Speech-Language Pathology by improving assessments and interventions for culturally and linguistically diverse populations and eliminating misconceptions about bilingualism.”
“Hana Dussan has outstanding potential to impact the field of Speech-Language Pathology. Her strong academic preparation, interest in mobilizing research evidence, and journalistic experience communicating science to lay audiences aligned perfectly with the goal of our Undergraduate Scholars Program.", says Sean Grant, PhD, who oversees the Undergraduate Scholars Program at the HEDCO Institute and nominated Hana as a graduate to spotlight. "As an Undergraduate Scholar, Hana helped collect data from our 70 studies on school-based depression prevention to examine what information is provided about student demographics. She was instrumental in our findings that most studies do not provide information desired by intended evidence-users about the nature of the students in whom these interventions are meant to apply in the real world. She has contributed as a co-author to the drafting of a translational product for educators and a manuscript under review at a peer-reviewed journal. These are remarkable accomplishments for an undergraduate student.”
Hana's plan for after graduation is to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison for her Masters of Science in Speech-Language Pathology.