Studying to Make a Difference

Kennady Krog (below), who is approaching her senior year and transferred into the chapter in 2020, has been working as a research assistant to a Christopher Newport alumna while she pursues her master’s degree at George Mason University. Kennady has been tracking prey selection patterns of the bottlenose dolphin, specifically mothercalf pairs. Working off the coast of Virginia Beach, she is tracking the dolphins most preferable prey and the conditions in which they typically hunt. Kennady will coauthor the research findings, which they hope to use to introduce legislation that prevents fishermen from catching dolphins’ prey, thus disrupting their lifecycles.

Alexis Walters, a rising senior and the previous VP of health, wellness and accountability is interning at eastern Virginia Medical School at a memory clinic. There, she collects data on patients with Alzheimer's and dementia. The memory clinic uses virtual reality technology to improve the efficacy, understanding and frequent burnout in the caregivers of dementia and Alzheimer’s patients. The primary goal of her research is to expand insight and education to diverse caregiver populations and contribute to an overall understanding of the disease. She and her team presented their data findings in July and hope their work will be used to improve caregiver support and patient care.