Researchers of Emory

  Omer Ashmaig  is a junior majoring in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology. He was awarded a Fall 2017 Conference Grant which he used to attend the 2017 Society for Neuroscience Conference. Attending the Society for Neuroscience (SFN) 2017 conference, located in Washington, D.C., was an important step in advancing my career as a researcher and scientist. My research project, “Bayesian Optimization of Asynchronous Distributed Microelectrode Theta Stimulation and Spatial Memory”, may sound like a mouth full, but it simply deals with trying to optimize Deep Brain Stimulation parameters, a novel therapeutic method for treating epilepsy, by looking at memory as a measured outcome. 

Shoeb Lallani is a recent graduate who majored in Neureoscience and Behavioral Biology and Chemistry. He was awarded a Spring 2017 Independent Grant which he used to conduct research on Huntington's Disease under Dr. Anthony Chan.   Hello! My name is Shoeb Lallani, an undergraduate senior at Emory, and I work in the Chan lab at the Yerkes Neuroscience Primate Research Center. I began researching under Dr. Chan as a sophomore in college and have continued to do so ever since! When I first began research, I watch others perform their experiments and learn from them. I also spent a lot of time reading research articles related to Dr. Chan’s field of study. As more time passed, I became more comfortable in the laboratory setting and started to do some work of my own.

Jacqueline Steele is a senior majoring in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology. She was awarded a Fall 2017 Conference Grant which she used to attend the 2017 Society for Neuroscience Conference. The  Society for Neuroscience Conference  was exciting; I had heard all of my professors talk about the meeting for years, so I was curious about what it would be like. I listened to a wide variety of lectures and poster presentations, and I learned about the different types of research being done in neuroscience around the world. It was especially interesting to go to symposiums lead by my mentors and teachers from Emory, it really showed me that Emory University is a leader in the field of neuroscience. My favorite symposium was led by my P.I. Dr. Mar Sanchez, and was about how scientists can communicate animal research to the public. It was stressed that if we don’t tell our stories, someone else will (and we might not like the way they tell them.) Right now, animal research h...

Jenna Sung is a recent graduate who majored in Psychology and Education. She was awarded a Spring 2017 Independent Grant which she used to conduct research on mathematical competence in children under Dr. Stella Lourenco.   I am a senior currently participating in the honors program in the Spatial Cognition Laboratory . My advisor is Dr. Stella Lourenco and I am currently investigating the research question: Does Mental Rotation Training Enhance Mathematical Competence in Children? Spatial ability is strongly correlated with mathematic competence and plays a crucial role in children’s education (Uttal, Miller, & Newcombe, 2013) , specifically STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). However, the causal links between space and math is largely unstudied limiting the practical implications of the relationship. The study tested whether there is a causal relation between spatial and mathematical abilities by implementing a novel online-at-home mental rotation train...

Jit Hui Tan is a recent graduate who majored in Psychology. She was awarded a Spring 2017 Independent Grant which she used to conduct research on the cultural dynamics of elder care under Dr. Nancy Bliwise. Embarking on an independent research project evokes many occasions of self doubt and self criticism. Two recurring, and unhelpful, rhetorical questions float around my head frequently: “Why did I put myself through this?” and “I will never make it.” The journey to completion seems long, almost impossible, and yet time seems to fly by and the deadline looms ever closer. Despite this depressing opening monologue, there were very genuine reasons for setting myself on this path. It began with the ambition of having an experience that would be novel, challenging, and set me apart from others. As the term ‘independent’ prefaces, an independent research project gave me the opportunity to exercise control over a research question of interest. Personally, I have a strong interest in the...

Nathaniel Sawyer is a recent graduate who majored in Interdisciplinary Studies of Science and Society and Human Health. He was awarded a Fall 2016 Independent Grant which he used to conduct research on navigating mental health resources at Emory under Dr. Kim Loudermilk.   For the Fall 2016 semester, my research has so far centered on collecting and analyzing student oral histories of their experiences navigating mental health concerns at Emory University so as to better understand the health outcomes, positive or negative, that are being seen by individuals who are struggling with poor mental health who come into contact with Emory’s mental health resources—the centerpiece being Emory’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). A large reason for my interest in both this method and this particular line of inquiry is the existence of a data gap in the evaluation of the efficacy of university mental health systems, both at Emory and at other higher education institutions acr...

Wendy Lee is a junior majoring in Biology. She was awarded a Fall 2017 Conference Grant which she used to attend the 2017 Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students. As my first research conference, ABRCMS 2017 in Phoenix, Arizona, has provided me with an eye-opening and career-launching experience. In contrast to the only research presentation experience I’ve had, which was a small-scale poster symposium at the end of the SURE program at Emory last summer, the ABRCMS biomedical research conference gathers undergraduates, graduates, post-docs, and medical professionals for a 4-day intensive workshop with hundreds of poster presentations occurring concurrently. The wide variety of scientific disciplines, including engineering, chemistry, psychology, etc., provided me an opportunity to be exposed to the current advancements and recent research in the fields that I am unfamiliar with. Through the conference, I was also able to meet scientists who are also studying...