The Neuroscience program is hosting a discussion panel focusing on research opportunities available through the Lafayette Alumni Research Network (LEARN) program 4:10 p.m. Oct. 25, in Oechsle Hall room 223.
Now in its sixth year, LEARN provides neuroscience majors with eight to ten week paid internships hosted by alumni researchers who are leaders in their fields. The program was established in part through a grant from the McCutcheon Foundation in 2002.
The panel will consist of previous LEARN scholars and mentors, as well as WendyHill, Rappolt Professor and chair of neuroscience, who will talk about LEARN and other summer internship and research opportunities. Free refreshments will be provided.
“The goal of LEARN is to give students a unique summer experience at a cutting-edge research institution,” says Hill. “It really is a great experience and I believe has helped alumni find positions when they graduated.”
Lisa Schrott ’87, assistant professor of pharmacology, toxicology, and neuroscience at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, and Marquis Scholar Sylvina Mullins ’07 (Johnstown, Pa.) will speak about their work together through LEARN.
Over the summer, Schrott collaborated with Mullins to investigate the extent to which prenatal exposure to the prescriptive opiate oxycodone, known as Oxycontin, impairs learning and memory later in life. Mullins tested oxycodone on rats in a spatial learning tank and examined neurochemical changes in their brains.
Schrott has been involved with LEARN for a number of years. The program grants her the abilityto work with talented undergraduates, while maintaining contact with Lafayette.
“I had the privilege of having wonderful mentors throughout my research career,” she says. “It is wonderful to give back to the scientific community that nurtured me by mentoring a new generation of researchers.”
Also part of the panel will be Danielle Sliva ’07 (Monroe, Conn) and Lori Cooper ’07 (Brackney, Pa.).
Sliva performed research with Jay Weiss ’63, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University, focusing on the neurochemical basis of mental illness by using animal models to examine the relationship between stress and immune responses.
Cooper was mentored by James Simmons ’65, professor of neuroscience at Brown University. Simmons studies the biological sonar, or echolocation, of bats as an auditory imaging system.