IN-PERSON | Sisukas + Pluckiness: Lessons From The World’s Happiest People with 2022 STEMMy Award Winner, Frances Yang

Resilience. Grit. Guts. Bravery. Tenacity. Determination.

We’ve all heard these words before, but have you ever associated them with happiness?
 
According to the United Nations 2023 World Happiness Report, the happiest people on earth live in Finland. In fact, the Suomis (the actual name for the Finns) have held this #1 spot since 2017. But why? 
 
The day after winning the 2022 WiSTEMM Educator STEMMy Award, Dr. Frances Yang went to Finland to receive her Fulbright Specialist Award. While there, she taught and conducted research among the Suomis and gained many insights on a major secret to their happiness, including the concept of sisukas.
 
While learning more about the concept of sisukas (sometimes refered as sisu), Dr. Yang realized it correlated with the word plucky, a term promoted by Liz Bohannon, who was a keynote speaker at the 2021 Midwest Leadership Summit. Both include resilience, grit and guts in helping us find happiness.
 
Join us for lunch on September 20^th for the next chapter of the WiSTEMM Spotlight Series, as Dr. Yang discusses her research in Finland and the correlation of sisukas and living with pluckiness.
 
--
 
Women in STEMM is a Central Exchange movement designed to put a well-deserved spotlight on women in Kansas City working in the fields of science, technology, engineering, math and medicine (STEMM). 
 
In the newly created WiSTEMM Spotlight Series, hear directly from past STEMMy Award honorees on their impact in the STEMM community. The honorees make changes for a better today and brighter tomorrow, and their influence on a global and local level makes a difference for the next generation.
 
Whether you are in a STEMM career, work for a STEMM organization, or interested in the topic, please join us!

Sponsored by:

 

---

Dr. Frances Yang is a gerontologist and epidemiologist who is a Research Associate Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Kansas. She received her training from Harvard Medical School, where she also served as a faculty member.  

Her expertise is examining the measurement of person-centered health outcomes in the presence of comorbid chronic health conditions, race/ethnic/cultural, language, and rural/urban differences.  

Currently, she is a member of the EPIC PROMIS Collaborative to better understand the implementation of PROMIS in the EPIC Electronic Health Record System.  She is the PI of the University of Kansas Medical Center Research Institute Lied Pre-Clinical and Clinical Research Award for “END COVID NOW: Emerging Novel Data on COVID-19 for Investigating Outcomes Worldwide Study” to use the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Data Science Strategy Open-Access Data and Computational Resources to develop a common metric to identify indicators for strategies to decrease cases and deaths due to COVID-19 around the world.   

Another emerging epidemic that Dr. Yang is addressing due to the recent mass shootings is the “Mass Shootings Survivor Support Study,” a state of the art interactive and culturally adaptive survey that allows for survivors of mass shootings to anonymously assess their emotional distress and receive resources.