Researchers of Emory

Marissa Russell is a senior majoring in Linguistics and Spanish. She was awarded a Spring 2018 Independent Grant which she used to conduct research on attention under Dr. Lynne Nygaard.  When I first pursued undergraduate research at Emory, I was unsure what to expect. I knew I had a strong interest in language and was intrigued by the research process, but I questioned how much meaningful experience I could gain (and how much I could truly contribute) as a junior in college. Now, looking back over the past two years in the Speech and Language Perception Lab, I can confidently say that research has been the most significant and rewarding aspect of my academic career.

Amina Dunn  is a senior majoring in Sociology and Theater Studies. She was awarded a Spring 2018 Independent Grant which she used to conduct research on campus political engagement under Dr. Irene Browne.  After two years at Emory, I noticed that political discussions between individuals with differing opinions were rare. I, myself, was having most of my political conversations within my friend group and, even then, I felt I was the one who was instigating most of the discussions. When I saw political demonstrations on campus, usually something very big had happened on campus to motivate students to act: “Trump” and “Build a Wall” were chalked all over campus, DACA was potentially going to be rescinded, Black Lives Matter art was washed off of Asbury Circle by the university, or Milo Yiannapolous was invited to speak on campus. Each of these incidents led to short-lived protests on campus; but generally, campus was and continues to be a peaceful place. At the tail-end of my s

Latha Karne  is a junior majoring in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology. She was awarded a Spring 2018 Independent Grant which she used to conduct research on opioid addiction under Dr. David Weinshenker.  Before entering college, students are required to take a series of tests to educate us on the dangers of abusing drugs. I've always known that prescription drugs should not be used by anyone except the individual for whom it was prescribed to, but had never  seen  up close the devastating effect that misuse can have. The summer before I started college, I was shadowing a trauma surgeon. A patient came in who was addicted to morphine, and I saw the difficulty of being able to treat their pain. Because the patient was addicted to a pain analgesic, he had developed a tolerance to the drug, which caused him to escalate his use and led to dependence. This “double hit” of the medication losing efficacy to treat the pain, while at the same time causing the addiction, was having a ma

Abdulaziz Aldakhel  is a senior majoring in Economics and Political Science. He served as a Research Ambassador for the 2017-2018 school year and has close to 2.5 years of experience as an undergraduate researcher at Emory. Emory prides itself on being one of the best research institutions in the country –and it is. With approximately $630 million in research funding, Emory University has the financial means to devote many resources to research. Undergraduate Research Programs (URP) is a great resource that allows undergraduate students at Emory to benefit from all these opportunities. In order to ensure that students are aware of these opportunities, a team of  Research Ambassadors work together to accomplish the mission of URP and support the mission of the program  by getting students engaged in different research fields. To help students make the most out of these resources and to start working on research projects, the team collaborates to make research accessible and to as