Franklin & Marshall College

As chancellor of Bonchek House, Schimberg has managed a sizable budget, interacted with students and administrators and helped to oversee a restructuring of the student government system. She also found time to serve as vice president of Hillel while remaining involved with her Jewish community back home in Baltimore.

And those are just her extracurriculars.

Her classroom engagement has been equally impressive, leading her beyond campus to become involved with the Lancaster community. Working with Professor of Economics Sean Flaherty, Schimberg interned at SouthEast Lancaster Health Services, helping to provide health care to the city's uninsured and underserved populations. This led to her interest in studying women's health issues among at-risk mothers.

The purpose of her Bonchek Fellowship research is to gain a better understanding of the factors contributing to low birthweight and preterm births to increase understanding and improve future pregnancy outcomes. Working with two different data sets, Schimberg analyzed the pregnancy outcomes of women in Lancaster County. She evaluated risk factors such as insurance type, age, race and place of residence. She then compared these figures with census information on household income, education and poverty rate.

Schimberg found that women with lower levels of education sometimes have better pregnancy outcomes than their more educated counterparts. She theorizes that might be attributable, in part, to the Amish population, which supplies a high level of support for its pregnant women. "Countering the trend," Schimberg says, "Amish women tend to receive less formal schooling but have more favorable birth outcomes."

The second half of Schimberg's ongoing project involves looking at hospital interventions with known pregnancy risk factors, including smoking, infections, depression and previous pregnancy intervals. The IMPLICIT (Intervention to Minimize Preterm and Low Birthweight Infants through Continuous Improvement) study collects data to see which interventions proved helpful, and Schimberg analyzed this data, as well.

An aspiring doctor, Schimberg believes that her off-campus experiences have given her a better understanding of the complexities of the health field and the obstacles within the system. "I can understand other people's obstacles and conflicts. I learned that the problems in accessing health care go beyond a lack of insurance."

Flaherty calls Schimberg "an essential partner" in preparing these research findings for publication, and notes that she brings intelligence, curiosity, enthusiasm and community mindedness to her research and academic studies.