What's been happening

Aiming for a first conference poster and, further out, a top graduate program in cancer prevention / population science. Treating it as a long apprenticeship, not a sprint. [confirm: any concrete poster or conference plans.]

Started shaping a small, well-scoped question of my own and learning how a question becomes a design becomes data. [confirm: whether a specific project exists.]

Picked up the early craft — data cleaning, reading studies critically, the basics of community-based participatory research. Slow, humbling, satisfying. [confirm: specific methods/tools learned.]

Began learning in the orbit of Dr. Deanna Kepka's work at Huntsman Cancer Institute and the Mountain West HPV Vaccination Coalition. Mostly listening, mostly taking notes. [confirm: the exact nature and start of the involvement.]

Fell for population science specifically — the moment I understood that getting a known intervention to the people who lack it is its own hard, worthy problem, not an afterthought to discovery.

First real reading in HPV-vaccination equity and rural cancer prevention. Started keeping a literature notebook and realizing how much I didn't know about how a vaccine actually reaches — or fails to reach — a community.

Began at Utah State University, drawn toward public health and the idea that prevention is where the largest gains hide. More questions than answers, which felt right.