Rachel Sun

Community-Academic Scholar: Rachel Sun (she/her)

Project: Rachel worked with Prof. Rachel A. Hoopsick and the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District (C-UPHD) to administer surveys examining the experiences, needs, and syringe services program (SSP)-related preferences of people who are currently participating in the C-UPHD Syringe Exchange Program to inform the work of the C-UPHD and positively affect the community. Learn more about the project.

Mentor reflection: Prof. Hoopsick is excited about Rachel's future in psychology and hopes this project has helped to foster growth for her future career plans in psychology. "Providing critical input that shaped our data collection instrument, data collection procedures, and recruitment methods, Rachel was an asset to our research team this summer," Hoopsick said. "Rachel is so incredibly passionate and eager to learn -- from study design, to data analysis, to writing. She is, by far, the most advanced undergraduate student I've ever worked with!"

How has participating in this program helped you toward your goals?
It's allowed me to learn about aspects of research I hadn't previously had experience with (recruitment, working with a community partner, etc.). I've also learned a lot about research on mental health coming from a public health perspective as opposed to from a psychology perspective, and become much more familiar with research around adult substance use.

What was the most meaningful part of this experience? 
Interacting with our survey participants has definitely made this work feel so impactful. One of our participants reported that "I feel like most people don't care if people like me live or die. This is one of the only places I've gone where people treat me like a human being, and I appreciate that so much." It was heartbreaking to learn the extent to which people who inject substances are mistreated by the healthcare systems that are meant to serve them.