NO AI OR CHAT GPD NO PLAGERISIM Introduction As you learn about the field of bio

NO AI OR CHAT GPD
NO PLAGERISIM
Introduction
As you learn about the field of biology, you may or may not stop to wonder who is actually conducting and sharing these observations with the scientific community, and the world at large. It’s really common to think of an old white man in a lab coat when asked to picture a scientist; while this paradigm is shiftingLinks to an external site., it is still important to recognize that there are many kinds of people who contribute to our understanding of the natural world!
In our class, you will have several opportunities to explore the lives and work of real, current scientists. In this series of “Get to Know a Scientist” assignments, we will feature scientists that perform work related to what you are learning in the course.
Meet Dra. Leticia Márquez-Magaña
You have now spent several weeks thinking about how bodies normally work and going forward, we’ll discuss different aspects of health, or, the conditions under which the body is functioning as it should. As you probably already know, healthcare is not available in the same way to everyone in the U.S., and across the globe. There are many medical researchers who have devoted their careers to providing evidence of the disproportionate impacts of conditions ranging from microaggressions to cancer on underserved populations. In this “Get To Know A Scientist” assignment, you will learn more about Dra. Leticia Márquez-Magaña, who founded and leads the Health Equity Research (HER) Lab at San Francisco State University.
Dra. Márquez-Magaña’s family immigrated from México, and she says that her desire to become a scientist began as a child. Starting elementary school as a monolingual Spanish speaker, she worked to become a National Merit Scholar and valedictorian of her high school class. and became the first member of her extended family to complete high school. She got into Stanford, her dream school, and while she earned her B.S. and M.S. in Biological Sciences there, the connection between health research and social, economic, and environmental factors became very clear to her. She earned her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from UC Berkeley and became a professor at San Francisco State in 1994, where she founded the HER Lab.
The HER Lab’s mission is to link basic science to community health. Dra. Márquez-Magaña and her colleagues use biomedical tools to link social injustices with health issues in marginalized communities. Their work includes finding the biological and genetic pathways that stress and the pressure to be successful can impact African-American women, and how rural Latina survivors of breast cancer can have worse health outcomes but are still left out of medical research. Dra. Márquez-Magaña has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for over 20 years. In addition to being a researcher, professor, and mentor, she serves on the Community Research Board for the Center for Youth Wellness in Bayview Hunters Point.
You can follow Dra. Márquez-Magaña on Twitter ‎@brownlensesLinks to an external site..
Learn More!
Below, you will find a list of resources to learn more about Dra. Márquez-Magaña and her work. You will pick at least two of the resources about Dr. Márquez-Magaña’s work to complete a writing assignment that will help you reflect on her research that supports reforms to make healthcare equitable. Read: This scientist wants to know how racial discrimination gets ‘under the skin’Links to an external site.
Journal article abstract: Racial discrimination, the superwoman schema, and allostatic load: exploring an integrative stress-coping model among African American womenLinks to an external site.
Full journal article: Cortisol levels in rural Latina breast cancer survivors participating in a peer-delivered cognitive-behavioral stress management intervention: The Nuevo Amanecer-II RCTLinks to an external site.
Full journal article: Healthy Parks Healthy People as an Upstream Stress Reduction StrategyLinks to an external site.
Watch:Faculty Bio interviewLinks to an external site.(~6 minutes; auto-generated captions, no transcript)
Dra. Márquez-Magaña’s lab website: Health Equity Research (HER) LabLinks to an external site.
Assignment Details
After reviewing the video, podcast and/or articles, write a reflection with your responses to what you saw. To receive full credit, your reflection should be a minimum of 300 words and should incorporate and reflect on at least two of the sources from the list above. Please use a direct quotation only if the exact phrasing of the original material is essential to your point. Otherwise, put the information from the sources into your own words rather than quoting the sources directly. Some topics you might wish to discuss include, but are not limited to:
What was most interesting to you in reviewing these resources?
How might your health, or the health of people you know, be impacted by who you are or where you live?
What new questions do you have after reviewing these resources?
What do these resources tell you about the types of people that do science?
Grading
This assignment will be graded using Turnitin. To see how this assignment will be graded, scroll down to view the grading rubric on this page or go to the text version of the rubric.
While I am not specifically grading you on your spelling or grammar, clear scientific communication is an important skill. Please proofread and spellcheck before posting/submitting to ensure that your ideas come across clearly. Up to 10% may be deducted for excessive grammar and spelling errors that affect the readability of your work.