Past TEP grant recipient Clarisa Medina Poeliniz, PNP, of Rush University in Chicago, Illinois, USA, received a Trainee Travel Fund (TTF) grant in 2017. The grant enabled her to travel to the University of Western Australia and collaborate with research colleagues there.

During her work in Australia, Ms. Medina Poeliniz learned to analyze human milk (HM) specimens for sodium and potassium and participated in analysis including defatting HM and better understanding the process for lactose, citrate, and total protein. She also assisted with demographic data and statistical data analysis.

About her experience, Ms. Medina Poeliniz said:

“This travel award has had a direct influence on my future program of study. As a result of this new collaboration, my research now reflects an innovative and significant opportunity to further study the biological versus behavioral and motivational mechanisms that impact lactation outcomes in overweight and obese women.”

Thanks to TTF funding, Ms. Medina Poeliniz was able to synthesize her research into a poster submission and present her findings at a Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) conference in Lisbon, Portugal.  

Some of Ms. Medina Poeliniz’s TTF-enabled work is reflected in the study Human Milk Biomarkers of Secretory Activation in Breast Pump-Dependent Mothers of Premature Infants, published in Breastfeeding Medicine in 2018. 

Access all of Ms. Medina Poeliniz’s research works on Google Scholar here.