Lise Chelsea Mbakop
Lise Chelsea Mbakop is an undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania pursuing a major in Health and Societies while on the pre-medical track. With an interest in global health, particularly in under-resourced healthcare systems, Chelsea hopes to obtain a medical degree to assist populations in these healthcare contexts.
For SUMR this summer, Chelsea works under Dr. Carmen Guerra on the “Pre-Implantation Study of an Intervention to Mitigate Unconscious Bias in Breast Cancer Clinical Trials” to understand the biases that physicians, researchers, and other providers carry when recommending patients to Cancer Clinical Trials. As enrollment of Black and Brown patients in novel cancer treatment techniques is significantly low, this study aims to understand where this discrepancy stems from on the provider level. While working on this study, Chelsea develops competency in interviewing and communicating with different providers, as well as utilizing common research software like In-Vivo, RedCap, and the process of coding data. Chelsea hopes to continue to follow this project beyond SUMR, as interventions for provider bias are subsequently put in place.
At Penn, she is involved as the research director of the Health of African Immigrants Program, where she is both aiding in training community health workers to serve African communities in West Philadelphia, as well as culturally translating the Community Health Worker curriculum for French and Arabic African populations. Additionally, she is involved as a co-interviewer in qualitative research at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, working to understand the infant breastfeeding decisions of HIV-positive caregivers. Throughout the school year, Chelsea also works under Dr. Michael Abt in a gut microbiology lab while being an LA for Introductory Biology Courses.
In her free time, she enjoys writing stories, watching k-dramas and c-dramas, and trying sweets.