Researchers of Emory

I still can’t believe how fast the whole summer went by. Between the traveling, research, learning, meeting new people and taking  time  to realize “wow I’m living in Madrid all by myself” I easily had the best summer of my life. Not only did my Spanish language skills improve, my research skills also greatly improved. In terms of  research  I learned how to conduct several behavioral tests (Rotarod, T-maze, T-maze elevated and Object Recognition), perform stereotaxic lesions, perform cell lines, calculate concentrations and sacrifice animals, all while being taught in Spanish. This was my first research experience handling live animals (mice and rats) so that was a very interesting learning experience for me. I didn’t have much fear in terms of handling the actual animals (rats are surprisingly friendly); however, the hardest personal research obstacle occurred when it came time to sacrifice the mice I had been running behavioral tests on for several weeks. Our...

From May 20 to July 27,  2015  I was in  Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda (QENP)  studying its wildlife and ecology. Through those ten weeks I gained knowledge, experience, and memories I will carry with me through my academic and professional careers. The journey started in September 2014 when my Emory advisor,  Dr. Thomas Gillespie , introduced me to one of his top collaborators and friends  Dr. Innocent Rwego  at  One Health Central and Eastern Africa (OHCEA) . He suggested the possibility of a collaborative research experience. I was particularly interested in this opportunity because I have always wanted to do research in a Sub-Saharan country and I also believe One Health studies are new and invaluable to the scientific community. So soon thereafter, I applied for Emory’s International Research Experience for Science Students (IRES) fellowship and was awarded the research grant a few months later.