While all Laidlaw Scholars will be presenting their research at the Columbia Undergraduate Research Symposium in the fall, what are the more immediate expectations that you have for your research? Are you writing a paper? Will your research be part of a larger scientific study? Do you hope to produce an annotated bibliography that you reflect on down the line? Is your research now the first phase of a project you’ll continue to work on throughout the year, and/or next summer? Now that we are nearing the one-month mark of the program, please write about your expectations for your research.
Currently, because I have been working on an independent project that I am preparing to submit as a manuscript to a journal eventually, I've been spending a significant amount of time on each step. So far, I have completed my introduction and Methods; however, the data analysis is taking much longer than I initially expected, and so, as my PI had warned me, I'm not planning for the Laidlaw research paper to be my final paper. Rather, I am going to continue doing as much data analysis as possible to produce as many figures and results as I can, and then in the last week, I will pause my data analysis to write a preliminary research paper summing up my findings at that point. After the fellowship, I plan to keep using the summer and part of the school year to finalize my complete data analysis and manuscript.
Why does your research matter? Explain the significance of the question you are investigating, and why you are interested in it.
My research is crucial to the health of not just New Yorkers but consumers worldwide, because it will expose the danger of SLPs and highlight just how many additional chemicals and ingredients are in such cosmesceuticals despite not being labeled. A portion of my project will actually report illegal SLPs to the FDA and NYCDOH, which will hopefully remove these products from shelves and prevent potential health risks that otherwise would've occurred upon product use. In general, I hope my project will raise more skepticism regarding consumer products as a whole, which will push consumers to think harder about what they are putting on their bodies in order to make safer choices.
Hey everyone! My name is Karthik Mahakala, and I am a rising Sophomore studying Environmental Biology at Columbia College. Specifically, I am extremely passionate about environmental health sciences, which encompasses how physical, chemical, and biological factors in the natural and built environments impact public health.
This summer, I will be evaluating the reliability of consumer-facing packaging signals for skin-lightening products across Northern Manhattan as a research assistant in the Llanos Lab.
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Karthik, it's super interesting to hear more about your project on SLPs in cosmeceuticals! I remember having read The Poisoner's Handbook and learning about toxic chemicals in consumer products that have now been removed due to concerns about their effects on human health. I would be curious to learn more about the algorithms you use in analyzing the harmful chemicals and whether it's a particular dosage of SLPs or the presence of SLPs at all. Looking forward to hearing more as your project progresses!