Hello readers! My name is Amy Vertacnik, and this is my first semester as a Reproductive Rights and Health Intern. Just a little bit about myself- I’m a rising sophomore and will be working with Dr. Alyssa Lederer this summer/fall on a research project exploring factors that contribute to STI knowledge in the college age group. I’m actually a French major with a public health minor, and I’m working towards my Early Childhood Education teaching license. My interests in research primarily include health education and behavior which coincide with my current project perfectly.
I’ve been working with Dr. Lederer now for about 2 weeks, and I’ve been enjoying it immensely. My main focus for this summer and into the fall semester is to compose a literature review of the public health community’s current knowledge about factors relating to STI knowledge. The project as a whole was inspired by Dr. Lederer’s doctoral thesis focusing on how graphic STI images affected sexual education. For this current project, we will be taking the pre-test data of 425 participants from that study and analyzing it to determine what factors contributed to the student’s knowledge of STIs before the sexual education intervention. We have not yet chosen what factors we will be focusing on but some potential factors may include gender, race/ethnicity, when the subject had last seen a physician, number of sexual partners, and more. 
So far, my biggest accomplishment has been finishing the CITI certification program. This certification allows me to work on IRB approved research projects with human subjects. During the rest of my internship, I hope to develop my scholarly writing skills and further understand the process of research dissemination. I’m looking forward to the rest of my time with Dr. Lederer!