October 28, 2024
A future clinical researcher for Georgia
GRA Student Scholar Victory Ladipo
People who have multiple sclerosis often experience fatigue and reduced mobility. Measuring walking is part of MS care, but it can be extremely challenging to measure walking in everyday life.
So, a Shepherd Center research project is exploring new technology that can measure walking outside the clinic. They’re using “smart socks” equipped with sensors. The socks send important information to a patient’s healthcare provider – in real time.
Enter Victory: In the clinical lab, she ensured the smart socks functioned as they should. She also helped process and analyze the data.
“And there was a LOT of data,” she says. “It was especially enlightening to see how the smart socks data compared to how patients viewed their experiences walking. In some cases, the two measures were completely different.”
Early in her Georgia Tech career – Victory is a biology major – she was drawn to lab research. Particularly the kind involving patients.
The GRA Student Scholar program gave her the chance to try out research, and in a clinical setting.
“I took a leap of faith when applying to become a GRA Student Scholar,” Victory recalls. “I was amazed when I got the acceptance letter.”
Victory was one of the first GRA Student Scholars to spend an entire academic year in the lab. And Shepherd Center kept her on for another two semesters!
“I’d never thought about how people experience clinical studies,” she says. “I came to understand that their participation in clinical research could really help them in the long run. And it could help others, too.”
GRA is grateful for steadfast support of the GRA Student Scholars program by the AT&T Foundation, Coca-Cola Foundation and Georgia Power Foundation.
