Kayla Holloway
Kayla Holloway is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences double majoring in Neuroscience, Health, and Societies with a concentration in Public Health, and minoring in Chemistry. After completing her undergraduate studies, she plans to continue her academic career by going to medical school. She is interested in how healthcare inequities influence the health outcomes of marginalized populations, and her research interest is motivated by her desire to combat healthcare inequity and improve the healthcare experiences of marginalized communities.
As a SUMR scholar, Holloway worked with Dr. Heather Burris on a study aimed at exploring how the quantification of racial designations and racial categorization influence risk assessment outcomes. The specific goal of this project was to quantify write-in racial designations on the PA birth certificate and determine the extent to which re-categorizing individuals into bins consistent with self-designation changes estimates of racial disparities in preterm birth. By exploring the nuances of racial identity, methodological approaches to analyzing race, and risk assessment outcomes, she hopes to enhance her understanding of how the intersection between one’s identity and the quantification of various identities in health research can influence research outcomes.
In the Penn community, Holloway is the Vice President of the Minority Association for Premedical Students and President of the NAACP Penn chapter. She also serves as the Political Chair of Descendants of Afro-Americans at Penn. She also enjoys being a member of the Penn Club Tennis Team.