Eleonora Capuani
Eleonora Capuani completed undergraduate studies with advanced courses at University of Bristol (UK), receiving a MSci in Math and Physics in 2002. She then entered the Graduate School of Neural & Behavioural Sciences, University of Tuebingen (Germany), International Max Planck Research School, where she received a Master's degree in 2004. During her four laboratory rotations and thesis research, Eleonora gained expertise in molecular biology, behavioural neuropharmacology, and cell biology, including techniques such as tissue culture, transfection of eukaryotic cells, co-culture systems to study neurite extension in vitro, plasmid cloning procedures (endonuclease restriction analysis, agarose gel electrophoresis, purification of DNA), immunocytochemistry, Western Blot, RNA isolation, PCR and quantitative RT-PCR. She is coauthor on a 2005 publication from the laboratory of Dr. Werner Schmidt reporting on the role of mGluR5 in secondary food and drug (amphetamine) reward using a conditioned place preference paradigm with rats. Eleonora is also coauthor on a a 2004 SfN abstract and a 2005 publication from the laboratory of Dr. Bill Rebeck at Georgetown, where she spent a summer studying apoE signalling and beta-amyloid plaques. Eleonora is interested in combining neuroanatomical, neuropharmacological, behavioral and molecular techniques to investigate the functioning of the brain in animal models of psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases. She is also interested in gaining experience in teaching at the undergraduate level.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Iain DeWitt
In 2000 Iain DeWitt graduated from Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana with a B.A. in Psychobiology. From 2001 to 2003, Iain worked as a technical and research coordinator for Dr. Stephan Heckers at the Massachusetts General Hospital where he managed operations of the MRI imaging lab, coordinated multiple clinical research projects, developed quantitative research methodologies (e.g., hippocampal morphometry) and designed and implemented psychological experiments. Components of these projects have been published as several scientific papers and abstracts. The focus of the lab was on the contribution of medial temporal lobe pathology to functional abnormalities in psychosis and schizophrenia. From July of 2004 until mid-2005, Iain worked in the lab of Dr. Guinevere Eden in The Center for the Study of Learning here at Georgetown. His duties included developing computer scripts for psychological experiments, developing a website for an online neuroanatomical atlas, generating behavioral and MRI data, and analyzing functional and structural MRI data. Iain is completing an M.Sc. in statistics at University College London. Iain is especially interested in the processing of written language and the basis for the spelling impairment prevalent in dyslexia. He also anticipates that his research will contribute to the development of new educational strategies.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Li Feng
Li Feng is graduating from the University at Buffalo in the Spring of 2006 with a B.A. in Biology. She started her undergraduate studies at Xi'an Jiaotong University, China University and then moved to the University of Waikato in New Zealand. After her first year at Waikato, she participated in a one year exchange program at UC Berkley. She wanted to remain in the US, so she then transferred to U Buffalo to complete her undergraduate studies. She conducted research with Dr. Merilyn Manley-Harris at University of Waikato, where she performed protein structural analysis using the mass spectrometer and wrote protocols for this purpose for other faculty and graduate students in the biology department. Also at Waikato, she worked in the laboratory of Dr. Peter Molan where she prepared Manuka honey wound dressing samples of different concentrations for clinical testing in the Waikato Hospital. Her tests included analyzing glucose peroxidase in the honey and evaluating the use of the honey as sunscreen by testing its absorbance in the U.V range. During the past two years, she has conducted independent research with Dr. Kathryn Medler at the University at Buffalo, studying the physiology of neuronal cell signaling pathways, characterizing calcium buffering mechanisms in taste cells of mice using patch clamp analysis and calcium imaging. Li is especially interested in studying neural plasticity, neurogenesis and synaptogenesis using both molecular and systems approaches in order to find improved therapies for preventing and alleviating degenerative diseases in the nervous system.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Patrick Forcelli
Patrick Forcelli is graduating in 2006 from Boston College with a B.S. in Biology and Psychology. As a champion of neuroscience, Patrick started a campus chapter of the Society for Neuroscience at Boston College. He has mastered a wide range of research techniques includings animal surgery, EEG recording, seizure evaluation, conditioning experiments, blood collection, tissue processing, and immunohistochemistry, among others. Patrick has conducted his research in the Affective Neuropsychopharmacology lab of Stephen C. Heinrichs in the department of Psychology at Boston College. His studies included examining developmental behavioral teratogenecity of fluoxetine and chlomipramine in rodents, stress reactivity in the EL epileptic mouse, and immunohistochemistry using various markers to analyze EL brains. In addition to pursuing research and coursework, Patrick has been the editor of a campus paper, he has served as a teaching assistant in Psychopharmacology, as a tutor for neuroscience courses, and he has been active in the drama society. Patrick has a broad range of interests in neuroscience, extending from the behavorial and developmental, through the molecular and pharmacological, and he hopes to blend these in his future research training.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Meredith Jones
Meredith Jones received a BA in Biology with a concentration in Neuroscience from Williams College in 2004. As an undergraduate, she worked in the lab of Dr. Noah Sandstrom, conducting an independent study on the effects of pregnancy-related hormones on memory in rats. After graduation, Meredith was selected for an Intramural Research Training Award (IRTA) at NIMH. She has spent the last two years at NIMH, initially in the Geriatric Psychiatry Branch with Dr. Robert Cohen and Dr. Trey Sunderland where she asssited in a project using imaging, including voxel-based morphometry, to analyze changes in hippocampal volume in individuals at risk for Alzheimer's Disease, and to correlate structural changes with genetic variations in APOE. Subsequently, Meredith is worked in the lab of Dr. Heather Cameron in the area of adult neurogenesis and its response to manipulations such as maternal separation, in vivo long-term potentiation and long-term depression, injections with various GABAergic drugs, and memantine treatment. She has also examed the behavioral phenotype of transgenic animals that have impaired adult neurogenesis. Meredith finds this area of research fascinating because it integrates information from anatomy, developmental biology, cell biology, molecular biology and genetics. Meredith was inspired to apply to the IPN after visiting a poster from Dr. Josh Corbin's lab at the SfN meeting in the fall of 2005.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Guillermo Palchik
Guillermo (Gil) Palchik earned a BS in Psychology in 2002 from Boston University. He subsequently took several basic sciences courses in a post-bac program at Harvard University, while working for Dr. Orian Shirihai at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole. His research examined the effects of endocrine modulators on the mitochondrial activity of insulin secreting beta cells. At the MBL, he gained experience using confocal and multiphoton microscopy techniques. Gil then moved to North Carolina, where he conducted Alzheimer’s research in the laboratory of Drs. Samuel Deadwyler and Robert Hampson at Wake Forest University. His research examined the effects of cannabinoids ( Δ9-THC) on the levels of calcium in dendritic spines in hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons, and on the localization of pre- and post- synaptic potassium channels. In addition, Gil was in charge of creating a confocal microscopy core laboratory. For the past two years, Gil has been working as the lab manager of the Microscopy and Imaging Core Lab at the Lombardi Center at Georgetown, where he is responsible for providing microscopy instruction and assistance to over 60 principal investigators, graduate students and staff, as well as teaching experimental design and image analysis. Gil is especially interested in epilepsy research and in brain imaging using fMRI techniques.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Scott Paluszkiewicz
Scott Paluszkiewicz received a BS from McGill University in 2005 in Biology. During his final undergraduate year, he conducted an independent honors research project in the laboratory of Dr. Francois Fagotto, whose research focuses on molecules involved in cell adhesion and signaling. His project in the Fagotto lab focused on the roles of the zonula occludens (ZO) proteins in the early embryonic development of Xenopus laevis, used as a model for the study of the formation and maintenance of boundaries influenced by differential cadherin expression. Scott studied the expression of ZO-2 and other members of the MAGUK (membrane-associated guanylate kinase) protein family, with the aim of clarifying their functional roles. He used antisense oligonucleotides targeted directly to or near their mRNA translation start sites to selectively knockdown the expression of the proteins. Scott was responsible for the design of the antisense morpholinos, which he carried out with the aid of several bioinformatics-based approaches. Scott’s extra curricular activities included regular contributions to Steps magazine, a McGill publication encouraging creative writing, and participation in several intramural sports leagues. He has also coached minor hockey and has been involved in tournament administration. Scott is especially interested in neuronal development and in molecular approaches to understand diseases of the nervous system.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Lauren Ullrich
Lauren Ullrich is graduating from Swarthmore College in 2006 with a BA in Psychobiology. Her undergraduate program included studies in Paris and a semester abroad in Denmark. She designed a research project for her honors thesis in Dr. Kathleen Siwicki’s lab, where she worked since January 2005--including a summer as an HHMI Summer Research Fellow. Lauren used genetic and behavioral techniques to study long-term memory of courtship suppression in Drosophila. She has also had experience with intracellular recording and immunofluorescence on leech ganglia and stretch receptor function in crayfish as part of a lab in a neurobiology course. Her earliest lab experience was in the summer of 2002, when she learned to use PCR and gel electrophoresis in the lab of Dr. Partha Chowdhury at Human Genome Sciences in Rockville, MD. Lauren’s enthusiasm for research is matched by her passion for teaching, which she recognizes, based on her own experience teaching and tutoring, is an important way to learn material well and communicate with others. While Lauren is especially interested in cognitive neuroscience, she is eager to explore techniques ranging from single cell recording to fMRI.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Emily Waterhouse
Emily Waterhouse graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 2002 with a B.S. in Biopsychology. As an undergraduate she conducted research in the Psychology department, where she used behavioral, fMRI, and single-cell recording data to create computational mathematical models to analyze working memory, implicit category learning, and cognitive function in Parkinson’s disease. She was coauthor on an abstract reporting on this research at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society meeting in 2002. After graduating from college, she taught for UNESCO in Vietnam for the 2002/2003 academic year, and then returned to Santa Barbara to work for the Sansum Clinic Lab and the Santa Barbara Hospital. Emily entered the M.D./Ph.D. program at Georgetown in 2004 and she has completed her first two years of the medical school portion of the program. While she has been here, she has worked on deciphering the mechanisms that determine the accumulation of beta-amyloid in Alzheimer’s disease.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Elizabeth West
Elizabeth West is graduating in the Spring of 2006 from the University of Delaware with a BA in Biology and Psychology, with an emphasis in Neuroscience. After her freshman year Elizabeth was hired as an intern in the neuroscience division of the pharmaceutical company, AstraZeneca, where she conducted research in behavioral pharmacology. The following year, she sought out research experience at U Delaware by volunteering in the biopsychology department, running fear-conditioning experiments with rats. She continued to work at both AstraZeneca and the University of Delaware throughout the past 3 years. She has performed behavioral tasks including delay-non-matched to position, pre-pulse inhibition, differential reinforcement of low rates, fear conditioning, unconditioned fear, drug discrimination and punished responding. In addition, she has experience with stereotaxic surgery, brain dissection and removal, brain slicing, drug injections in animals, and statistical analysis. Elizabeth is co-author on 3 abstracts and one publication, and she is first author on an abstract for the Experimental Biology meeting in April, 2006. She currently is helping to prepare two manuscripts for submission. Elizabeth has also gained experience tutoring and working as a teaching assistant. Elizabeth would like to integrate research in brain anatomy and physiology with behavior in animal models to better understand mechanisms underlying various psychological disorders (e.g., anxiety, schizophrenia), emotion, memory and learning. She would like to expand her experience working with rat, mouse, and guinea pig models, to additional species such as monkeys.