Performing research at the Family Resiliency Center (FRC) was nothing like what Tarie Somsak expected.
A rising junior studying neuroscience and cognitive sciences at Tulane University, Somsak spent her summer at FRC as part of the Research and Education for the Advancement of Compassionate Healthcare (REACH) program, which matches undergraduates interested in medical school with research opportunities across campus. At FRC, Somsak worked with data from a mindful movement study. Mindful movement practices are intended to be low-cost, highly scalable, and sustainable ways to support young children and their teachers and families in positive strategies for improved emotional coping. The program included in-class implementation as well as tools for using the strategies independently.
Somsak said she found herself surprised by both the nature of the work she was performing and the collaborative culture of the Center.
"Originally, when I planned to do research, I imagined a lab coat, a microscope, test tubes—all that stereotypical stuff," Somsak said, "But here it was different. I went through interviews with parents of young children, analyzed survey data, and watched session videos of the children's behavior. That was a unique experience. I feel I could probably get the 'stereotypical' research experience anywhere, but working here this summer turned out to be much more interesting to me."
One of her primary tasks was reviewing and coding transcripts of interviews with parents to find patterns in their responses—a practice referred to as "theming" by qualitative researchers. Somsak was especially struck by the collaboration and communication required for coding together as a team.
"It is a lot of work to go through the transcripts, but group coding really helps," she said. "Seeing how others code lets you learn from them and notice how they categorized the data. It also improved my communication skills. At the end of each day, I needed to keep everyone updated about what I did and arrange for who in the lab would pick it up next. I will definitely carry those communication strategies forward in school and going into a career."
By integrating into an FRC project, Somsak noted that she came to understand how the process of asking questions and receiving feedback can be generative. She was even able to pay those practices forward herself.
"I learned a lot just from being included on emails. I would send my work to Dr. Dariotis, Rachel [Jackson-Gordon], and Dana [Eldreth] and watch them bounce ideas off each other," she said. "The graduate students really helped me too, especially with learning MAXQDA and SPSS [analysis software programs] and with orienting me to working on my poster. After that, I was able to help [summer high school researchers] Hadassah and Genesis and give them some advice for one or two things I learned about making a poster. I really appreciated being able to share my knowledge with other people."
Despite differing from her initial expectations, Somsak said that her time spent at the center was invaluable.
"Obviously everyone in the REACH program was placed in a research lab, but I had a really different summer experience," she said. "I feel like I was pretty lucky to be placed here."
Somsak's poster presentation was awarded third place out of 110 posters at the Illinois Summer Research Symposium on July 21, 2025. In the coming year, she plans to work with the FRC team to advance the work to publication.