Bethany Robinson, a junior year biology undergraduate student in the Northern Arizona University Honors College, was awarded the Hooper Undergraduate Research Award (HURA) — a grant to do her own research on the impact of disability on access to physical activity while incarcerated among women.
Robinson was also the sole awardee of the NAU Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Inquiry. She works on projects for both then Center for Health Equity Research (CHER) and the Southwest Health Equity Research Collaborative (SHERC).
She is from Phoenix and attended Boulder Creek High School in Anthem. Robinson presented her work with the county at the National Conferences on Undergraduate Research as well as the NAU Undergraduate Research Symposium.
“She has done so much work in the COVID-19 pandemic response in our community,” said Ricky Camplain, assistant professor in NAU’s Department of Health Sciences and CHER and mentor to Robinson, along with Heather Williamson, assistant professor for the Department of Occupational Therapy and CHER.
The HURA was created to encourage greater participation of undergraduate students from all disciplines in research, scholarly, and creative activities supervised by a faculty mentor. Awardees must be enrolled as full-time students in an undergraduate program for both the fall and spring semesters and be in good academic standing.
“Bethany has incredible initiative and we are so lucky to have her as a part of our research team at CHER/SHERC,” Camplain said. “No matter what direction her future career holds, she will make great waves!”