Author: Faisal Khan | Major: Biology | Semester: Fall 2025

Faisal Khan

My name is Faisal Khan, and I am a current Junior at the University of Arkansas. I am majoring in Biology with a minor in medical humanities and general business. I am doing my research in the HEAL lab with Dr. Page Dobbs, who has been a supportive and motivating mentor helping me through the research process. Dr. Dobbs is a part of the department of Health, Human Performance and Recreation in the college of health professions. This is my second semester doing research with Dr. Dobbs and I plan on doing research with her for the remainder of my time at the university. After graduation I plan to pursue medical school with a strong interest in public health, preventive medicine, and health policy.

From my experience talking with peers, many students struggle finding a lab or research opportunities at the university so I want to briefly discuss how I went about finding this lab. During my freshman year I took honors chemistry 2, in this class we had a project to create an information pamphlet and video discussing a faculty’s research. We were provided with a list of faculty that are conducting research at the university and began looking into their work. My group consisted of all pre health students so we wanted to try and learn more about health science oriented research and we discovered many who fit this. My number one piece of advice would be to reach out to as many people as possible as early as possible. We were able to come into contact with Dr. Dobbs at this point where we went to inquire about her research for our assignment. After our interview I became interested in the perspectives in which they research and how it is unique to what I expected when analyzing public health issues. Due to my peaked interest I reached out to Dr. Dobbs in my second semester of sophomore year to begin research that semester and she was happy to let me in and join the team.

My research examines how caffeine pouches are marketed on TikTok, with particular attention to the health and wellness claims embedded in this content. Caffeine pouches are increasingly framed as “clean,” “safe,” or “healthier” alternatives to energy drinks, yet there is little research on how these messages are communicated to young audiences. By analyzing promotional videos and influencer content, this project explores how social media marketing may shape perceptions of risk, safety, and performance enhancement. The findings have real world relevance for public health education, digital advertising regulation, and product regulation. Through this research, I learned that marketing on TikTok often relies less on explicit health claims and more on implication. Words like “clean energy,” “no crash,” and “better than energy drinks” were frequently paired with imagery of studying, exercising, or working long hours. Influencer content was especially powerful, as content blurred the line between advertising and lived experience. This reinforced how easily persuasive messaging can bypass traditional regulatory oversight. I also learned a great deal about myself as a researcher. Conducting qualitative content analysis required patience, attention to detail, and the ability to think critically about patterns rather than isolated examples. I became more comfortable with ambiguity and learned that strong research questions often lead to complex, nuanced answers rather than clear cut conclusions.

My mentor provided tremendous guidance through the research process. Dr. Dobbs helped me narrow my research question, guided me in selecting appropriate qualitative methods, and developing the codebook that would be used to classify terms in the videos. Dr. Dobbs has always been a motivating mentor and this is our 3rd research project together to this point. I plan on presenting one of my research papers in the form of a poster presentation at the annual Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco conference in the spring semester. Along with this I will continue working on my thesis defense and conducting research in new and exciting projects.