News from Haley and the Neuroscience Club!

Hello everyone! My name is Haley and I am currently a junior undergraduate student. This is my second semester in the lab and will be in the lab next year as well. I am majoring in biochemistry because I love understanding the mechanism of how things work. My particular interest is, of course, neuroscience! I am minoring in neuroscience and philosophy so that I can develop a better understanding of not only the hard science of the brain but also the philosophical ideas of the mind.

In the lab, we work with mice to help improve the current understanding of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). We study glutamate transporters in the striatum and manipulate different sets of cells by taking advantage of the Cre-LoxP system (Read more about it here!).

When I am not in the lab or at school, I love to be outside! In the summer I try to spend most of my time on the water whether it be jet skiing, boating or just being with friends and family. I also enjoy hiking in the Adirondacks and in the winter, I love to ski (a.k.a the only good part about winter). I love any and all types of music and some of my favorite shows include Black Mirror, Game of Thrones and The Office as well as being a documentaryaholic.

On campus, I help run The Neuroscience Club. We are always looking for more students to be a part of the club so if you are interested you can find us on MyInvolvement and join our Facebook page, UAlbany Neuroscience Club. We will be trying to post more frequently so that our members stay updated. It is a fun club for anyone interested in neuroscience! Feel free to email me at hchesbro@albany.edu if you have any questions!

My ultimate goal is to go to medical school and become a Neurologist. I want to continue studying neuroscience as it is such a rapidly advancing field with more and more being discovered every year. There are so many exciting areas of research including neuroregeneration, neural prosthetics, neurogenetics, stem cell research, proteomics and much more. With life expectancy climbing worldwide, treating health at the level of the brain is becoming increasingly important to global human well-being. I hope to one day help make a difference in the lives of those that are afflicted with a wide range of neurological disorders.

Thanks for reading!

Haley Chesbro

Haley is the recipient of the following awards:
2020            President's Award for Leadership – Distinguished Scholar-Leader Award 
2020            Accepted to NCRC 2020 at Harvard University 
2020            Accepted to NCUR 2020 at Montana State University 
2020            CURCE Travel Award
2019            CURCE Award

доброе утро!

I have a little announcement to make, though I am aware this will break the 2-week-long tradition of weekly posts on Neurovoice. Please blame it on my enthusiasm. I am thrilled to be presenting JP's stunning new data on astrocytes at the Baikal Neuroscience Meeting (Siberia, Russia) this summer, which I will join as an invited speaker. There is an outstanding list of speakers and I am both humbled and thrilled to be part of it! Finally, I can see the purpose of going through multiple winter seasons in Albany!!

Annalisa Scimemi

Ladies and gentlemen, here is JP!

Hi everyone! As Annalisa alluded to in the previous post, I’m currently the longest tenured member of the Scimemi Lab, having started back as an undergraduate student in the Fall semester of 2015 (aka making me the old grandpa of the lab). I’m currently in my third year of the MCDN PhD program here at the University at Albany, focusing on the “N” or neural portion of the acronym. In my two full years in the program, I’ve focused in on astrocytes, a glial cell type widely found across the brain, and how they influence and effect memory and learning within the hippocampus.

Stepping away from the science quickly, some of my hobbies include being outdoors, whether it be hiking, boating, or just playing sports. For those of you that don’t know, I’m a former member of the University at Albany’s football team, participating while I was an undergraduate ( if you want a good laugh, you can google my name with “Albany football” for my last roster picture from 2016). I also enjoy listening to various podcasts and all types of music, from rap to indie. Some of my favorite artists are Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Lil Uzi Vert, Mumford and Sons, and Two Door Cinema Club, among others.

Once I conclude my PhD in Albany, I hope to continue my scientific research career by investigating the effects of concussions and other traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and their long-term impacts. Being able to combine two of my deepest passions, football and neuroscience, I feel that concussion research is a natural progression for myself as a scientist. Concussion research has been a hot topic of late in the Nation Football League, as it’s been made a paramount point to make the game safer, not just at the professional level but also at the collegiate, high school and youth levels. Being able to contribute to the research that makes the game I love potentially safer is a dream that I plan to pursue and make a reality!

Thank you all for taking a couple minute out of your day to get to know me a little better and I’m excited to see where this blog goes!

JP McCauley

JP is the recipient of the following awards:
2019           CAS Travel Award
2018           Runner Up Poster Presentation Award - Life Sciences Research Symposium
2017-19     TA at Ion Channels and Synaptic Transmission CSHL summer course
2017           Best Poster Presentation Award - Life Sciences Research Symposium
2017           Travel Award for Best Poster Presentation - SfN Hudson-Berkshire Chapter Meeting
2017           President's Award for Leadership - SUNY Albany

Ready...Steady...Go!

I would like to start my first post by saying that this is an experiment and, as such, I don't know the outcome but I am thrilled to see how everything will unfold!

I am a neuroscientist enthusiast and a gregarious person who would like to give a voice to young trainees that also share an interest in neuroscience but have limited experience in the field. The posts in this blog are not meant to be perfect or to be a masterpiece of any kind. They are just supposed to be opportunities to communicate something about ourselves: passions, dreams, fears and ideas are all welcome!

In the next few weeks we will introduce ourselves and then little by little, once we have warmed up, we will make this a platform for scientific discoveries in neuroscience.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those that agree to be part of this: it's often easier to be critical than creative. You're a pro!

Annalisa Scimemi