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Recent graduate Daniel Haddad ’06 (Colorado Springs, Colo.) was among several students nationwide honored this past year when he presented research on male zebra finches at the 35th annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington, D.C. He participated in the Faculty Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN) poster session.
Haddad, who graduated in May with a B.S. neuroscience, studied the effects of neurotransmitters in the mating behavior of finches in honors thesis research under the guidance of Wendy Hill, Rappolt Professor of Neuroscience.
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. 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.
Haddad focused on how dopaminergic pathways throughout the brain affect sexual behavior and courtship in male finches. Dopaminergic pathways relate to or are activated by dopamine, a hormone-like neurotransmitter that facilitates critical brain function.
“Dan was studying the role of neurotransmitters in courtship and mating behaviors,” says Hill. “In particular, he was exploring the importance of dopamine receptors to the singing and courting behaviors of male zebra finches.”
“While working with Dr. Hill, I looked at how the dopamine system affects both appetitive and consummatory behavior in male zebra finches,” explains Haddad. “Since the brain has a variety of dopamine receptors, prior research has mainly focused on D1 receptor subtypes and for the sake of time and simplicity, Dr. Hill and I decided to focus our study on D1 receptor subtypes as well. In doing so, we were able to observe drug induced behavioral effects from a D1 agonist and a D1 antagonist.”
He says the invitation to share his work at the FUN session was a humbling and validating experience.
“Presenting research at any conference is regarded as an honor because it demonstrates our ability, as undergraduates, to impact the scientific community,” he says. “The FUN poster session in Washington was held by the Society for Neuroscience during its annual conference, which to date is the largest neuroscience gathering in the world. This past year, the conference held close to 35,000 people.”
“The FUN session is a way to highlight the research accomplishments of undergraduates at a conference where the research presentations are overwhelmingly done by graduate students and professors,” Hill adds.
Haddad, who is preparing to take MCAT exams in August, believes Lafayette has prepared him well for medical school. He plans to teach English in China this fall.
Hill is confident Haddad will succeed in the medical field.
“Dan has a natural curiosity, which has served him well during his various research experiences,” she says. “In addition to conducting research with me, Dan has also worked on projects with Lafayette alumni at Brown, Columbia, and Duke.”
He spent 10 weeks conducting research with James Simmons ’65, professor of neuroscience at Brown University, through the Lafayette Alumni Research Network. Simmons studies the biological sonar, or echolocation, of bats as an auditory imaging system. He and Haddad studied bats’ swarming behavior.
Haddad also spent a week and a half shadowing Perrin Wilson ’00 at Rockefeller University through Lafayette’s externship program. In addition to observing Wilson at work, he conducted experiments, which included tissue culturing and analyzing DNA to identify genes of a mouse line through a technique called polymerase chain reactions. He also learned about enzyme analysis and dissected a mouse cerebellum.
Haddad was a member of the psychology honor society Psi Chi and scientific and engineering honor society Sigma Xi. He received the William C. Rappolt and Walter Oechsle Neuroscience Prize given annually to an outstanding senior based on scholarship in the classroom and laboratory and service to the major, college, or community. He also was a psychology lab assistant, America Reads tutor, and supervisor for the student phonathon. He is a graduate of Cheyenne Mountain High School.
Honors theses are among several major programs that have made Lafayette a national leader in undergraduate research. The College sends one of the largest contingents to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research each year; 40 students were accepted to present their research at this year’s conference.