McNair Scholar 2021 Yanai Sun
Yanai Sun is a junior at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, majoring in computer science. Her research interests revolve around transcribing ideas into innovations that can improve the quality of life. Ms. Sun plans on getting her master’s in computer science through the integrated Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree program.
My dream is to leverage computer science to develop an approach to improve our ability to accurately diagnose and treat disease to enhance the delivery of health care. I want to ensure all patients receive the best tailored care they need and be treated with utter respect for his or her individuality.
Research project
Is There a Relation Between COVID-19 School Closures and Childcare Usage or Young Children?
Abstract: Throughout the pandemic, schools in Minneapolis adopted distanced learning policies to slow the spread of COVID-19. Although such closure policies did not formally extend to childcare for young children (e.g., childcare centers), there is reason to suspect that school closures may have had indirect effects on childcare utilization by signaling similar health concerns with young children and by shifting the child care needs of families with school-aged siblings returning home from school. The movement of young children out of childcare has important implications for the day-to-day lives of children and families, as well potentially broader demand-side impacts on the childcare market (i.e., reduced supply). The aim of the present descriptive study was to consider the extent to which COVID-based school closures were associated with trends in childcare utilization in Minneapolis. We used objective foot-traffic data obtained through mobile-device tracking to evaluate the temporal relation between school closures and childcare utilization during the pandemic. Our findings indicated that there was an acute, short-lived increase in childcare utilization at the initiation of the school closures. However, this was followed by a rapid decrease in child care use from April to July in 2020 when compared to 2019.
Faculty mentor
Dr. Daniel Berry is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota. He attended Harvard University where he took his doctorate in Human Development and Psychology in 2010, prior to post-doctoral work at New York University, and serving as a faculty member at the University of Illinois through 2016. His research specializes in the study of self-regulation of attention and emotion in childhood; the interplay of experience, stress physiology, and self-regulation; longitudinal quantitative methods. Dr. Berry is published in multiple research journals and has presented his work at conferences nationally and internationally.