Retrieving Data from the Metabolic Cart in the Experimental Trial
Author: Mazzi Carlson | Major: Exercise Science | Semester: Spring 2024
My name is Mazzi Carlson, and my major is exercise science within the College of Education and Health Professions. My mentor is Dr. Brendon McDermott, who is in the Health, Human Performance, and Recreation department. The funded semester for my research was spring of 2024. I plan on graduating with my undergraduate degree in spring of 2025 and starting physical therapy school the following summer. I am interested in becoming a sport or orthopedic physical therapist.
The premise of my research is around the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) being the gold standard of evaluating heat stress and giving precautionary measures to athletes, occupational workers, and the military. We wanted to see if the WBGT adequately assessed heat stress at varying levels of humidity, and the heat chamber was used to set specific heat and humidity levels for this study. We had a preliminary trial to assess cardiorespiratory fitness of the participants before they could move on to the experimental trials. The experimental trials is where we collected physiological data of the participants while they cycled on a stationary bike in the heat chamber for 60 minutes for both humidity levels. Our data concluded that the WBGT does assess heat stress adequately because the data showed that there wasn’t much physiological difference between the different humidities.
I came into college with credit from high school and I took summer classes to put me on an accelerated path, to ultimately finish a year early. This caused slight stress when I needed to figure out what I wanted to do for my research and which mentor I wanted to work with. The first thing I did was I met with my freshman honors college advisor to get advice on how to email professors about research and how to effectively use the University of Arkansas website to look up mentors and publications they had. I did my research on the professors who were currently doing research and had read publications they had on previous research to get a feel on what I was most interested in. Dr. McDermott research immediately stood out to me, so I reached out to him through email to set up a meeting. After the first meeting, I knew he was going to be the mentor I wanted to work with because he understood my academic and professional plan and wanted to help me reach my goals within research. The topic was brainstormed in spring of 2023 with the members of the lab, which included faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students. I felt a lot of ease working with so many intelligent minds that were able to brainstorm together because I didn’t feel like I was ever working alone or had the weight of the world on my back.
Because I started my research during the end of my first year of college and into my second year, I had not gotten into a lot of my major focused classes about exercise science. This led to me doing a lot of my own learning about thermoregulation and exercise physiology. A lot of this learning came from writing my literature review and reading through the many articles, journals, and studies to have adequate references. I now know about how humidity works and affects the body, the sweat-evaporation mechanism that the body uses, and more about physiological factors like heart rate, blood pressure, VO2, and core body temperature. I also learned how to effectively find publications related to the topic you are researching, and how to use them within research of my own.
The biggest challenge that had to be faced within my research was balancing academics, individual research time, experimental trials, going to work, and having some sort of social life. Doing research is another meal added to the plate of life, and I wasn’t mentally prepared for what I was getting into when I first started working with McDermott’s lab team. I felt overwhelmed and felt like I had so many things to accomplish and finish at once, but that was false. I had multiple meetings with Dr. McDermott to discuss a timeline, deadlines, and what I needed to do to stay on track. Having this plan helped me mentally wrap my mind around this new aspect of research in my life. Once I started to understand the plan better, started going to more lab trials, and getting into writing my thesis, everything started to fall into place within my mind. I struggle with a lot of time anxiety and worrying about the future, but I was able to overcome this juggling act by relying on my mentor and other amazing individuals in the lab to guide and give me encouragement.
Currently, I have finished the data collection portion of my research, and the next step would be to start writing my thesis and preparing my defense. I still plan on helping with research coming up within the lab because I find it enjoyable and fulfilling. I will be able to use this research experience on my resume for physical therapy school, which I will be applying to this summer.