Opportunities to attend and/or present at conferences are excellent for professional development and networking in the field. Recently, volunteer work flourished into the opportunity for Liz Ochoa to present at a conference. Liz is a first year in the Global Health & Health Disparities concentration at the CSU campus of the ColoradoSPH. This past semester Liz has been volunteering in Dr. Kaigang Li’s lab in the Department of Health and Exercise Science.

Liz’s presentation titled, “Young Adults Riding with Marijuana, Alcohol, or Illicit Drugs Impaired Peer or Adult Drivers” was given in March, at the Society for Behavioral Medicine’s annual conference. Another ColoradoSPH at CSU student, Haley Moss, also presented research at the same conference on the topic of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease risk in the U.S.

The experience was very positive for Liz. “Presenting at the Society for Behavioral Medicine was a great opportunity to network, meet other professionals, and discuss the great research opportunities going on through the Colorado School of Public Health. The best part of my poster presentation was realizing that two professors from ColoradoSPH were also presenting next to me. After the presentation was over, I was able to exchange contact information and further talk about our research interests,” she said.