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When Marquis Scholar Megan Coyer ’05 (Slippery Rock, Pa.) watches male and female zebra finches in Lafayette’s aviary, she can’t help but compare their behavior to that of some people she knows.
“The females fluff themselves up and the males compete for their attention,” she says with a laugh.
Coyer has spent her spring semester documenting the courtship and mating behavior of two male and two female zebra finches as part of an EXCEL Scholars project with Wendy Hill, Rappolt Professor in Neuroscience. In Lafayette’s distinctive EXCEL Scholars program, students collaborate with faculty on research while earning a stipend. More than 160 students participate each year, many publishing papers in scholarly journals and/or presenting their research at conferences.
Coyer, a behavioral neuroscience major, plans to continue the work this summer, when she will begin administering testosterone to the male finches and recording its effects on their behavior as they mate and raise their young.
“We will especially be examining aggression after administering the testosterone,” she says.
Hill is pleased to have Coyer join her in the ongoing research, pointing out that the student was quick to understand her role and to find ways to improve the data collection system.
“She is just so articulate and bright and can really cut to the chase of an issue,” Hill says. “She’s also very meticulous and well organized, and she has a nice confidence about her.”
Coyer says she chose Lafayette after meeting Hill on a campus visit and learning about the College’s new neuroscience facilities, then under construction.
“She’s one of the reasons I came here,” Coyer says, adding that the behavioral neuroscience program as a whole also impressed her.
Hill is the recipient of more than a dozen grants, including a 2003 James McKeen Cattell Fund Fellowship for a major new research project that could provide insight into how physiological systems give rise to adaptive behaviors (see related story). She was named Pennsylvania’s Professor of the Year in 1999 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching for her extraordinary dedication to teaching and exceptional impact on and involvement with undergraduate students.
Coyer, who is considering either behavioral research or medicine as a career, began taking advantage of Lafayette’s many opportunities last summer, when she assisted Jay M. Weiss ’62, the Jenny C. Adams Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University, Atlanta, Ga., in his neurobehavior laboratory (see related story).
“It was a wonderful experience,” says Coyer, who was linked to Weiss through Lafayette’s LEARN (Lafayette Alumni Research Network) program. “I worked in the lab full-time, assisting with small-animal surgery and other clinical research. I learned all kinds of different techniques.”
In LEARN, alumni who conduct cutting-edge research in the neuroscience field mentor Lafayette students (see related story). The students are paid for eight to 10 weeks of full-time work and travel to the mentor’s institution, with room expenses covered.
Coyer also spent the January interim session between semesters studying theater in London.
A member of Lafayette Activities Forum, Coyer is a peer tutor in design analysis and a pianist who performs in on-campus recitals. During the fall semester, she volunteered with the Meals for the Homeless program through Lafayette’s Landis Community Outreach Center.