Undergraduate Research Scholars Program

During her first years at N.C. A&T, Deja Carrington thought she knew her perfect career path: Graduate with a degree in food science, concentrating in human nutrition, and become a registered dietitian working with the National Football League.

Then came her junior year and an opportunity to work with Heather Colleran, Ph.D., RDN, an assistant professor in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences.

“I was looking for a job for the summer. Dr. Colleran invited me to come to work for her in her lab as an Undergraduate Research Scholar,” said Carrington, who graduated in May. “She told me I’d also get to do research, present at conferences and do other things to improve my resume.”

Carrington was intrigued by the offer.

“I thought that all sounded good, so why not?” she said. “I applied to the program, and I was accepted.”

Carrington began working with Colleran on her Evans-Allen study examining the ways that exercise and diet can affect a nursing mother’s health, particularly in regard to bone density. Known as MEEMA (Moms Exercising and Eating to Maintain Health and an Active Lifestyle), the project enrolls volunteer mothers for a 12-week period, engaging them in a plan of exercise and dairy intake – particularly yogurt – to determine their effects on bone density.

Carrington’s role in the study was to look at dietary data. Once enrolled in the study, participating moms check in six to eight weeks after giving birth to report what they’ve been eating, and again between 18 and 20 weeks. Carrington collected the data using a computer software system known as NDSR (Nutrient Database System for Research) and examined what the women have eaten, their patterns of eating and the nutrient composition of their diets. She then evaluated that information according to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) and the Healthy Eating Index (HEI), two national guidelines set by the USDA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In addition, she helped with the exercise and dietary education components of the study.

“This project is right up my alley,” Carrington said. “I look at how much fat, dairy, grains, proteins and vegetables the moms intake, and compare that to the dietary guidelines and the Healthy Eating Index to assess the moms’ dietary patterns and their (diets’ nutritional) quality to see the role that food plays in bone density.”

URSP Scholar Deja Carrington practices making assessments of a baby’s health on a model in the lab of Heather Colleran, Ph.D., RDN. “I know the science, and now I can put it in layman’s terms,” she said.

“Deja is an asset to the study,” Colleran said. “Deja likes the kids and the moms, and they respond well to her. She can handle both the lab work and the interpersonal connections, and she’s happy to help in any capacity that we need. If we’re processing serum samples, and we need someone to hold a baby, she’s the one who will do it.”

For Carrington, an important part of the study was learning the significance of breast milk: what makes it so special to babies, how lactation works and how to help new mothers.

“Formula feeding is for convenience, and it’s comforting to moms because you can measure it exactly,” she said. “But breast milk has all the nutrients that a baby needs for life. Formula lacks important immune system-building factors that breast milk provides.”

As a result of her experience in the program, Carrington said, her career plans have changed somewhat. She still plans to get a master’s degree in dietetics and become a registered dietitian, but after that, she probably will take her skills to a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) instead of a football field.

“I’d like to work with an NICU, because that’s where so much is needed. I can have a big impact,” she said. “I am still interested in sports dietetics, but also in neonatal dietetics.”

She also would like to be a lactation consultant and a doula, a trained professional who helps people through health care experiences such as childbirth. Carrington said she wants to help open the profession to a more diverse group of caregivers.

“Right now, there’s not a lot of diversity among lactation consultants, and that may mean that diverse moms may not feel comfortable getting help if they need it,” Carrington said. “I want to help with that, so that babies and moms can get better care.

“This experience has been so much fun. I know the science, and now I can put it in layman’s terms. I’ve loved working with everyone.”

I want to know what it is about food that makes it so good to eat,” says nutrition major Johnson.

Anisa Johnson likes to talk about nutrition. In fact, she likes it so much that she made nutrition her major, graduating with her degree in May.

But when she finds herself in a crowd, the response can be a bit overwhelming.

“There’s a lot of misinformation out there, and everyone – my friends, random people, literally everyone – wants to ask me questions,” she said. “People think that they know a lot about nutrition, and they want to talk to me about what they know. But what I’ve found that most people think is nutrition is really just the latest fad diet, or something they’ve heard about online that’s being called ‘nutrition information.’

“Real nutrition is more complicated than that. I try to fill in the gaps for them.”

Taking the initiative to clear up misconceptions about nutrition is nothing new to Johnson. Her willingness to take the initiative is one of the qualities that brought her to N.C. A&T, made her a Dowdy Scholar and earned her a spot in the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences.

“I saw the URSP application in the department office, and I nominated myself,” she said. “And I was accepted.”

While still a high school student in Richmond, Virginia, Johnson came to N.C. A&T to participate in the Research Apprentice Program (RAP) in nutrition. The next year, as she considered colleges, her scientific father, a biologist, gave her this practical advice: “There’s the right school,” he said, “and then there’s the right school for you.”

The right school for Johnson is A&T.

“Not every school has a nutrition curriculum, first of all,” she said, “and then, there’s the family atmosphere. I have always felt very supported and encouraged here.”

After becoming part of the URSP program, Johnson joined the lab of Heather Colleran, Ph.D. RDN, working on Colleran’s three-year Evans-Allen study examining the ways that exercise and diet can affect a nursing mother’s health, particularly in regard to bone density. The study is known as MEEMA (Moms Exercising and Eating to Maintain Health and an Active Lifestyle.)

When a mother is breast-feeding, calcium is transferred to her infant, causing a temporary loss of bone density. When the infant is weaned, the mother’s bone density often is restored to pre-pregnancy levels. But with women becoming pregnant later in life, closer to menopause, a full period of bone-density recovery may not occur. The study seeks to determine whether exercise can lessen the amount of bone lost during lactation and, upon weaning, restore bone density.

To test this, the study enrolls volunteer lactating mothers for 12 weeks at a time and starts them on a bone-building exercise regimen based on individual ability. Colleran and her team meet with the women three days a week for exercise. The team monitors the women’s activity, including exercise and steps per day.

Since a diet rich in calcium plays a role in bone density, the team also monitors the moms’ dairy consumption. Participants in the study are given 6 ounces of yogurt to eat at the end of each exercise session.

Johnson helped to process samples of breast milk, blood, urine and stool from the mothers and babies in the study for later analysis.

Fatty lipids in human milk are examined as part of Colleran’s MEEMA study.

She also tested different lipid extraction methods for breast milk to determine which method gives the best yield for fatty acid analysis. Once the fatty acids are extracted from the breast milk, Johnson analyzed the samples using gas chromatography to generate a fatty acid profile. The fatty acid profile in the milk will be compared with the mother’s diet during the time the milk sample was taken.

“The goal is to figure out the percentages of the different types of lipids in breast milk and see how they change based on what the mother is eating,” Johnson said. “This will help us understand what makes breast milk so special.”

Despite its well-documented benefits, Johnson said, many aspects of breast milk haven’t been analyzed yet, especially relative to what food the mother consumes.

“We know more about how cow’s milk works for cows,” she said. “What you put into your body affects all other aspects of your life. By eating right, you could lower your risk for developing a chronic disease.”

Just months into her freshman year, Johnson had her own firsthand experience with disease when she was infected by a strain of the bacteria E. coli. The illness left her sidelined for most of the spring semester and resulted in two major surgeries, including the removal of her entire large intestine.

Although she still doesn’t know how she contracted the virulent strain, the notes she took throughout her ordeal, documenting what she ate and how she felt, helped her doctors understand what had happened.

“I found it very ironic that I, a nutrition major, was going through this,” she said.

With her professors’ support, Johnson was able to bounce back, missing only one semester. Working hard, she made up incomplete grades during the summers and kept her scholarship.

“Anisa is a very bright student,” Colleran said. “She is a motivator and a mentor for other students here, and to bounce back from her illness like that is very impressive. She’s one of those students that you know will go pretty far.”

Johnson found a learning experience amidst the adversity.

“I learned that, if you let people help you, plenty of people will rise to the occasion and help you,” she said. “I also learned that, if I can come through that, I can do anything.”

After graduation, Johnson is considering taking her research skills abroad before entering graduate school.

“A&T has been so much fun,” she said. “There are so many opportunities here. I’ve been able to create my own path, and I think that’s beautiful.”