Anekha Goyal

Anekha Goyal

Project title:  Explorations in Decision-Making to Reduce Inequities in Healthcare

Project description:  I aim to explore how social, environmental, and emotional influences affect one’s decision making processes and how these decisions translate to health outcomes. By understanding the mechanisms by these factors change one’s cognitive processes, physicians can better cater their advice to their patients. These findings can help doctors understand their patient’s mindsets and underlying beliefs so they can present their patients with information in a way that will lead them to make healthier decisions. 

Most important accomplishment:  I don't have a singular most important accomplishment, but I'm really glad that I decided to be more interdisciplinary in college and study the life sciences while conducting psychology research and doing projects in environmental sustainability. It's been rewarding to work with so many different people while becoming a versatile, well-rounded person. 

Reflections on the College Scholar Program:  One of my favorite parts of the program so far was learning from my peers in our College Scholar seminar. Since all the other students in the major comes from diverse academic backgrounds, they each add a unique perspective to my research question. It's stimulating to not only approach my topic from the various fields I'm interested in, but to be able to relate it to art, history, statistics, and language in ways I did not anticipate to.