In January, approximately 200 undergraduates from across the country presented their research at the National Collegiate Research Conference at Harvard University. Four were from Bridgewater State University, including Taylor Maynard, of Plymouth.
“They said the selection process was very competitive,’’ said Maynard, 22, a senior psychology major. “It’s impressive that Bridgewater State got four of us to present.’’
The others were Rebecca Vilk and Amber Nieves, both of Middleborough, and Dominic Locantore of Harwich, who presented their findings from their own areas of research.
Maynard’s presentation concerned research that attempts to validate the use of a smartphone application to monitor sleep, and whether cognition is affected by poor sleep quality, she said.
“We want to see if a modern technology like the phone can be used in a noninvasive way to measure sleep, so you don’t have to go into a sleep lab,’’ Maynard said. “It’s about trying to find an inexpensive and noninvasive way to collect data.’’
The research she presented at Harvard is not the area of study she will pursue in graduate school, she said. Her interest there lies in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Her late father suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.
She has applied to nine graduate schools, one of them at Harvard University, where her mother, Dona Maynard, earned master’s and doctoral degrees.
“That’s what drew me to psychology, I guess,’’ she said of her mom, who also attended Bridgewater State as an undergrad. “My mother is a clinical and forensic psychologist. I was inspired by that.’’
She said her mother “actually discouraged me from the hard work’’ that’s involved with advanced study in psychology, adding that, despite that maternal concern, “I decided to do this. It always fascinated me, and as I grew up the more specialized my interests became, so I ended up wanting to do experimental psychology.
“It was nice to see other people from across various disciplines presenting on applied sciences,’’ she said of being part of the National Collegiate Research Conference.
Paul E. Kandarian can be reached at pkandarian@aol.com.
