Researchers of Emory

Our featured student researcher of the month is Camila Reed-Guevara, a senior Classics and Philosophy major who focuses on ethics. As a prior SURE student, conference grant recipient, and a current Mellon Mays Undergraduate fellow, she has had a unique experience in undergraduate research. 

Nithya Shanmugam is a Sophomore who is majoring in Neuroscience. She was awarded a Fall 2018 Independent Grant which he used to conduct research on the role of microglial cell  polarization in medulloblastoma therapy  under Dr. Anna Kenney.  Dear Future Researcher, If you can take away one thing from this post, understand this: Your research may not always be successful in your eyes, but it will always be interesting and driven by curiosity. Whether you’re studying C. elegans, mesenchymal stem cells, or immune system brain cells (like me!), know that there is always something to be found – a cell to target, a receptor to inhibit, or a pathway to stimulate. 

Rumi  Habib is a senior who is a Biology and Philosophy double major. He was awarded a Fall 2018 Independent Grant which he used to conduct research on the Zika Virus under Dr. Ioanna  Skountzou. Although it was first discovered in 1947, the Zika virus didn’t enter the headlines until 2015. During the 2015-2016 epidemic, a wave of infants born with  microcephaly , a neurodevelopmental condition that causes babies to have smaller than normal heads, resulted in the World Health Organization declaring the outbreak an international public health emergency. Viruses in the same family as the Zika virus include dengue, West Nile, and yellow fever. However, during the epidemic it emerged that Zika fever, even though milder than the diseases caused by its relatives, has some very unusual features. With microcephaly being the major one, it also emerged that Zika could be sexually transmitted, can infect the eye, can cause thrombocytopenia (low platelet levels), and in extremely rare cases