Bella Bartoletti is establishing herself as an accomplished, rising voice in her field thanks to her experience at Slippery Rock University.
Bartoletti, a senior psychology major from Portage (Portage HS), took home the first prize for the Sloane Prize for Undergraduate Research in the Social and Behavioral Sciences category at the National Collegiate Honors Council Conference in San Diego, Nov. 6-9.
Bartoletti’s research focus is sports psychology, an area that is close to home for her as a javelin thrower on the SRU track and field team. The research that she presented at the conference focused on the relationship between psychological strain and depression in collegiate athletes, examining how factors of psychological strain, isolation and flourishing patterns predict depression among student-athletes.
“As a student-athlete, I’ve seen that most student-athletes have either dealt with mental health issues or they know someone who has,” Bartoletti said.
The overabundance of student athletes with mental health struggles is ultimately what inspired Bartoletti to pursue this line of research.
The research that would one day become Bartoletti’s award-winning presentation began as a sophomore project in a psychology statistics class at SRU, in which she and a classmate ran statistical models and found a correlation between psychological strain and depression. Bartoletti continued the research as a senior capstone project.
She continued her work under the mentorship of Jennifer Willford, professor of psychology. Bartoletti’s persistence paid off in San Diego, when she finally got to present her research.
“When we were presenting, it was really eyeopening to see other people doing what I was doing,” Bartoletti said. “We were having these intellectual conversations, not just with our peers, but with professionals in our areas of study.”
After presenting, she packed her bags and prepared to return home, receiving an email that she’d won a prize, though she didn’t know which.
“I didn’t find out I’d won until two days later.” Bartoletti laughed. “They couldn’t tell me what it was until the ceremony was over, and we had to catch our flight before that.”
After those two days passed, Bartoletti learned that she’d won first place in her category, but her work with this research didn’t end there.
Before she graduates, Bartoletti plans to start a chapter of The Hidden Opponent at SRU. The Hidden Opponent is a national organization that helps spread awareness about mental health in sports, bringing the topic of Bartoletti’s research into the light in an actionable and tangible way.
“Research is important because it helps you to identify problems, but now that we’ve identified a problem, we have to start to try to solve it,” Bartoletti said.
Thanks to SRU, Bartoletti has been supported with resources and opportunities necessary to become the forward-thinking achiever that she is today, paving the way for a brighter, healthier future for others.
More information about the psychology program can be found on the program’s website.
