Introducing our ten new (2004) first year IPN students
and our two new MD/PhD students:
KRISTEN K. ADEKristen received her B.A. in Psychology from Indiana University in 2002. Since graduation she has worked as an IRTA fellow at the NIAAA in the lab of Dr. David Lovinger, where she is currently conducting research on neural development and plasticity in the rat striatum and the role that endogenous cannabinoids play. As an undergraduate, Kristen worked in two different psychology laboratories; in one she administered personality and electrophysiological tests, and in the other she administered questionnaires. In graduate school she would like to pursue research related to neurodegenerative and neurological diseases and potential therapeutic approaches. Kristen is especially interested in neurotrophic factors, synaptic plasticity, neural transplantation, the effects of environmental influences on neural development, and the molecular mechanisms involved in neurodegenerative diseases.
ERICKA D. BURGOS
Ericka earned a Bachelor of Science in Psychology in May 2002 from George Mason University and continued at George Mason to pursue a Master’s degree in Biopsychology. Ericka’s undergraduate honors thesis research exposed her to the use of fMRI as she examined hemispherical differences among stroke patients in terms of effects on anxiety and depression . As an undergraduate, Ericka also gained experience in studying learning and memory in rats given drinking water supplemented with zinc, and she assisted in a project where kainic acid was given to animals. Her Master's thesis research concerns the effects of haloperidol on both pre - and postsynaptic markers of neurotransmitter function at the regional and cellular levels in the rat brain, using in situ hybridization, amongst other techniques. Ericka has become particularly interested in research on brain development in normal children and children with developmental disorders. Ericka is also committed to finding ways to use her neuroscientific expertise to contribute to community outreach and to advance public policy.
LAURA COCASLaura graduated in 2003 from Pitzer College (Claremont, California) with a B.A. in Psychology and Cognitive Behavioral Neuroscience. During her undergraduate years at Pitzer, Laura worked at both the Claremont Infant Study Center and the Claremont Memory and Aging Project. In her senior year at Pitzer College, Laura did two separate but related honors theses. Her Psychology thesis examined infant language development in terms of the kinds of information infants are exposed to through their parents’ speech. For her Neuroscience thesis, Laura worked in a lab at UCLA and looked at infant brainstem EEGs in association with processing of language. After graduating, Laura worked for the California Department of Mental Health as a therapeutic behavioral services counselor, where she counseled high-risk, socially inappropriate and violent children. Laura has very broad-based interests in neuroscience research. She is also interested in science public policy and is considering the possibility of eventually pursuing a law degree beyond the Ph.D.
LAURIE GLEZER
Laurie attended the University of Massachusetts where she obtained a degree in Communication Disorders in 1992. After graduating from U Mass, she went into a Master's program at New Mexico State University and in 1994 received a M.A. in Education and Speech-Language Pathology. Since then, Laurie has been working as a Speech Language Pathologist. She is currently in the laboratory of Dr. Rhonda Friedman. She has also worked as a Speech Pathologist in the Montgomery County School System. In Rhonda’s lab, Laurie administered and interpreted diagnostic tests of aphasia, alexia and anomia. She contributed to the collection and analysis of data, writing and implementing research protocols and she conducted speech and language screening. She has been testing experimental treatments for different types of alexia based on a cognitive neuropsychological model of reading. Laurie is interested in combining behavioral research with electrophysiological and functional imaging techniques to help identify the neural substrates of language, memory, and learning. She would eventually like to help develop new and effective treatments for patients with speech, cognitive and perceptual disorders.
ANGELA L. HOLMES
Angles Holmes received her Bachelor of Science in Psychology in 1998, and a Master's in Psychology in 2002, both from the University of the District of Columbia. While studying for her degrees, Angela worked as a Psychiatric Technician at the Potomac Ridge Behavioral Health counseling adolescents and adults with psychiatric disorders. She has also worked as an editor/researcher at the American Psychological association in the Office of Ethnic Minority Affairs. Angela is first author on three articles in the journal of the American Psychological Association and she has assisted in writing a book chapter on minorities in psychology. For the past year, Angela has been working in the lab of Drs. Ludise Malkova and Karen Gale at Georgetown, learning to train and test nonhuman primates in studies examining drug effects on behavior, and she has been taking a course in neuroscience at American University. Angela is especially intrigued by complex multifactorial disorders of the nervous system such as epilepsy and schizophrenia. She hopes to contribute to research on identifying genetic markers that predispose individuals to these disorders and to conduct pharmacological studies aimed at developing new therapies.
Elizabeth is a 1997 graduate of Connecticut College with a major in Psychology. Her work in the Neuroendocrinology lab as an undergraduate led to the publication of three papers on the effect of neurosteroids on learning and memory. Elizabeth has served as an integral part of the research team of Dr. Rhonda Friedman at Georgetown for the past 3 years. This past year she presented a poster at the Academy of Aphasia conference. She has also taken neuroscience coursework at Georgetown and has attended seminars and Neurolunch. In Rhonda’s laboratory she has administered diagnostic tests and cognitively based treatments relating to anomia and alexia, developed experimental stimuli for evaluating and probing speech and language function in brain-damaged populations, conducted fMRI experiments, and participated in grant writing. Elizabeth hopes to contribute to bridging the gap between the basic research and clinical communities, particularly in terms of treatments for cognitive and language disorders.
AMBER M. LEAVER
Amber received a BA Degree in both Linguistics and Anthropology from the University of Illinois in 2001, and then obtained an M.A. in Psychology from Bucknell Universityin 2003. While at the University of Illinois, Amber worked in a neurolinguisitics laboratory under the directorship of Dr. Susan Garnsey, where she assisted with ERP studies. It was in Dr. Garnsey’s lab where Amber developed an interest in Cognitive Neuroscience. At Bucknell, Amber conducted her master’s thesis research under the mentorship of Dr. Andrea Halpern, examining the perception of major and minor modes in music; her results have been submitted for publication. She also conducted psychophysics research with Dr. Arthur Shapiro, studying color and contrast perception. Amber has most recently been working at Princeton as a Research Assistant in Dr. Adriane Seiffert’s laboratory. Her projects involved motion perception and attention research, and she had the opportunity to assist with the fMRI studies. Amber is especially interested in using a combination of psychophysical and brain imaging techniques to explore sound perception.
This year, Esther obtained a B.S. from UC Berkeley with a major in Cognitive Science and an emphasis in Neuroscience. At Berkeley, Esther has been working as a research assistant in the Cognition and Action Lab of Dr. Rich Ivry, studying non-motor learning. Esther has also taken research courses at the University of Lund in Sweden as part of a study abroad program. She is interested in how people process information and interpret that information. In particular, a history of dyslexia in her family has stimulated her interest in research on dyslexia, and on differences in learning and information processing. In addition to conducting research, Esther hopes to contribute to a broader understanding of the functioning of the brain and mind in the broader community.
Robert Thomas Naumann (Tom) graduated from the University of Dayton 2003 with a degree in Psychology. After taking a course in Cognitive Neuroscience, Tom realized that he was interested in learning how the mind functions, what its biological and cognitive components are, and how the brain’s activity reflects our experience of the world. As an undergraduate, Tom interned at the Wallace-Kettering Neuroscience Institute in Kettering, Ohio with Dr. Mehdi Adineh. Since graduation, he has been a full time research assistant in this laboratory where has helped to develop fMRI protocols for presurgical planning. He has helped develop and prepare the stimulus delivery procedures for subjects in the scanner. In collaboration with researchers at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, he has conducted fMRI experiments and collected data on schizophrenia, comparing activation of the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus in schizophrenics and normals during a selective-attention task. Tom is especially interested in neuroimaging research related to cognition and behavior.
ANA POCIVAVSEKAna, a citizen of the former Yugolslavia, went to Duke University for her undergraduate studies and received her B.S in Psychology in December of 2003. She took several courses in neuroscience, cell biology and biopsychology. Through her lab work, she developed an interest in research that relates behavior to drug actions, specifically the effects of nicotine on behavior and memory. She worked in the laboratory of Dr. Ed Levin in the Psychiatry Department at Duke. In rats, mice and fish and humans (Alzheimer’s patients) she conducted neurobehavioral research on the cognitive enhancing effects of nicotine, testing working memory, learning and attention. For her honors thesis, Ana analyzed the mechanisms through which clozapine may interact with nicotinic receptor subtypes. Ana has presented her research at the 2003 SfN meeting, where she also took the opportunity to meet with some of our faculty and students. Ana has taken several classes focused on reading and discussing journal articles and she has taken a course for which she had to write an NRSA application. Ana would like to continue studying memory and cognition in animal models and in human subjects.
Welcome to our two new M.D./Ph.D. students :
(entered the medical school in 2002; begin full-time
doctoral training in 2004)
Chris is originally from Niagara Falls, NY. He graduated from Canisius College,Buffalo, NY in 2002, with a double major in Biology and Psychology. He has a wide range of research experience, including animal behavior and learning studies (in orca whales),growth cone chemotaxis, and most recently PET and SPECT brain scans. He intends to pursue his thesis research on human subjects using fMRI neuroimmaging.
KENTAROH (KENTA) TAKAGAKI
Kenta graduated in 2002 from the University of Tokyo with a B.Agr. His department was an historic department specializing in agricultural biochemistry (ie. bioorganic chemistry and microbiology in the spirit of Pasteur). His baccalaureate thesis was on the modulation of nuclear receptors by a fatty-acid binding protein in the ileal epithelium. He also worked in an infectious disease lab assisting with research in AIDS related signal transduction in astrocytes. Originally intending to pursue research in neurochemistry, he has shifted his interest to studying systems neuroscience on the network level. After coming to Georgetown in 2002, he was introduced to the joy and rigors of patch-clamp electrophysiology by Dr. Stefano Vicini and to the intriguing world of human neuroscience by Dr. Thomas Zeffiro. He is now studying cortical sensory neurophysiology, especially as pertains to the higher auditory areas, with Dr. Josef Rauschecker. He is considering an independent career dedicated to the research of neuropsychiatric disorders that involve altered sensory/perceptual processing.