Madison Meyer, a political science Junior, is the first student from UNF this year to present research at Harvard University. She’s dedicated her research to the relationship between socioeconomic status and suicide rates. Meyer initially conducted the research for a Health, Illness and Society class that she took in a previous semester for her double minor in sociology and criminal justice; this is where she got her inspiration to complete her Harvard-recognized research.

“Because if you look, there is no similar research that exists,” Meyer said. “The only ones that do exist have extension gaps in data or inconclusive results.”

“I really like writing and I have to do it a lot for my major so I put my all into this research paper it was like my baby” Meyer explained.

In order for her to get her research recognized, Meyer started looking up research conferences here in Florida. She didn’t have any guidance as to how to go about it so she ended up doing research on conferences so she could reach more people and get a broader audience to share her research with.

Meyer saw that Harvard was having a conference and decided to apply for it. Harvard was only accepting two hundred students worldwide, which prompted her excitement and shock upon being selected. She got to meet students from all over, a lot of which were biology and physics majors, which made her feel a little out of her element. Despite this, she still got to talk about her research and engage in other students as well.

“I was surprised that I got selected but, I had a really great time I’m very humbled that they chose me to go” she said.

She mentioned she was intimidated to be around all these students who were from top fourteen universities such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford etc. She was also one of the only social science majors there, but overall it was a great experience. She has the opportunity to network with other students, speak about her research, and represent UNF. She is honored and glad she was able to be apart of the experience.

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