Hi! My name is Bella, and I am a rising sophomore at Pitt. I’m currently a few days into the People and Other Animals course I am taking this summer in Wyoming with Dr. Emily Wanderer, and I have already learned so much. As a neuroscience student doing research in the social determinants of health that impact onset of Alzheimer’s, the relationships between people and their surroundings greatly interests me.

Anthropology is a unique subject in which a person can enter another culture in order to learn about its belief system or how its people interact with the world around them. Beyond the coursework itself, I’m hoping this program helps me to view belief systems in deeper ways. They are forces that not only act as culture, but also directly shape health. I want to understand the why behind how communities organize care, aging, and lifestyles in such vastly different ways.

In my Alzheimer’s research, I look a lot at how caregiving impacts patients in different ways, especially when they come from different views on what aging means. I want this program to give me more practice in understanding how those beliefs are shaped, and in what ways I can navigate cultures different from my own in order to meet the needs of those in my community.

I’ve already had so much fun being exposed a culture with values that hold different weight than in my own, and I can’t wait to see how this experience will transform my work at Pitt.