2010 Undergraduate Scholars

Benjamin Basanta
Major: Biology
Janelia Mentor: Loren Looger
Basanta worked on the design and synthesis of a new protein to function as a fluorescent dopamine sensor.

Georgia Blake
Major: Natural Sciences
Janelia Mentor: Lynn Riddiford
Blake studied the effect of juvenile hormone on apoptosis in the ventral nervous system in Drosophila melanogastor.

Amanda DiBattista
Major: Neuroscience
Janelia Mentor: Eva Pastalkova
DiBattista investigated the correlation between physiological responses and emotional state in behaving rodents.

Jack Etheredge
Major: Biology
Janelia Mentor: Jim Truman
Etheredge investigated the interaction between neighboring secondary neuronal stem cell lineages and as a mechanism for neuronal growth guidance in Drosophila larvae.

Miles Fontenot
Major: Biology
Janelia Mentor: Julie Simpson
Fontenot studied the neurons controlling grooming behavior in fruit flies using the split GAL4/UAS system.

Sara Haenzi
Major: Psychology and Neurobiology
Janelia Mentor: Roian Egnor
Haenzi studied the influence of male ultrasonic vocalizations on female mate choice in mice.

Laurel Heckman
Major: Chemistry
Janelia Mentor: Luke Lavis
Heckman developed a fluorescent caged neural activity integrator that will identify regions of the brain that are active during specific tasks.

Jessie Kanwal
Major: Biomedical Engineering
Janelia Mentor: Anthony Leonardo
Kanwal investigated the contribution of retinal ganglion cells to visual motion tracking in salamanders during preying behavior.

Andrew Lawson
Major: Natural Sciences Tripos
Janelia Mentor: David Clayton
Lawson used fluorescent labeling to investigate the location in which mitochondrial-DNA-encoded proteins are translated.

Danxun Li
Major: Physics
Janelia Mentor: Loren Looger
Li investigated in vitro modifications of the calcium sensor GCaMP3.

Yu-An (Stephanie) Lien
Major: Biomedical Engineering
Janelia Mentor: Alla Karpova
Lien investigated the operation of delayed reciprocity as a factor in the decision-making of rats.

Alexandra McGregor
Major: Biomedical Engineering
Janelia Mentor: Lou Scheffer
McGregor designed morphometry techniques for identifying the active zone of synapses in EM and FIB images.

Neset Ozel
Major: Molecular Biology and Genetics
Janelia Mentor: Alla Karpova
Ozel investigated the neural mechanisms of rat decision making in dynamic environments using in vivo electrophysiological recordings.

Theeradej (Paclink) Thaweerattanasinp
Major: Neuroscience
Janelia Mentor: Josh Dudman
Thaweerattanasinp developed a behavioral paradigm for odor-induced navigation in mice.

Chris Yates
Major: Natural Sciences
Janelia Mentor: Elena Rivas
Yates developed a two-state hidden Markov model to characterize the behavior of group-housed mice.