Research
SOAR
The goal of the Student Opportunities for Academic Research (SOAR) program is to facilitate student research in collaboration with a faculty mentor. To this end, the program provides stipends, travel allowances, and research expenses to support students and their faculty mentors as they engage in scholarly or creative work. Since its inception in 1998, the SOAR program has supported projects with student and faculty participation across every academic discipline at the college.
Honors Program
Established in 1960, the Honors Program at Moravian University provides qualified seniors the opportunity to pursue a yearlong intensive study of a subject of special interest. To participate in Honors, students must have an overall QPA of 3.0, with 3.3 in the proposed field of study. Usually, but not always, the project is in the student’s major. Applicants must propose the topic and secure the support of a faculty member (or members) to supervise the project. In the fall term of the senior year, Honors candidates carry out their research; in the spring, they prepare the Honors paper and defend their work before a panel of five faculty and staff members, one of whom may be from another institution.
Neuroscience SOAR and Honors Research Projects
Predator Avoidance Behavior in the Grass Shrimp Palaemon Pugio
Student: Jillian Connelly
Mentor: Dr. Joshua Lord
Stress Physiology, Neurodevelopment, and Pigmentation in a Vertebrate Model
Student: Delanie Crabtree
Mentor: Dr. Sara McClelland
Does Curcumin Preserve the Production and Metabolism of Dopamine in the 6-Hydroxydopamine Rodent Model of Parkinson's disease?
Student: Raquel Lopez de Boer
Mentor: Dr. Cecilia Fox
The Neurorestorative Effects of Curcumin and Vitamin E in a Nigral 6-Hydroxydopamine Model of Parkinson's disease
Student: Chloe Mondok
Mentor: Dr. Cecilia Fox
The Neuroprotective Potential of Capsaicin in the 6-Hydroxydopamine Model of Parkisonson's disease.
Student: Riley McHugh
Mentor: Dr. Cecilia Fox
The Neuroprotective Effects of Curcumin in the Striatal 6-Hydroxydopamine Model of Parkinson's disease
Student: Adriana Facchiano
Mentor: Dr. Cecilia Fox
The Neuroprotective Effects of Curcumin in the Nigral 6-Hydroxydopamine Model of Parkinson's disease
Student: Loukya Kanakamedala
Mentor: Dr. Cecilia Fox
Music and Semantic Memory in Healthy Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease
Students: Mary Petrik and Haley Skymba
Mentor: Dr. Sarah Johnson
Free Recall as a Teaching Exercise: Changes in Memory Organization Over Time
Students: Samuel Ansman and Alexandra Giacoletti
Mentor: Dr. Sarah Johnson
Intranasal Administration of DNSP-11 in a Chronic 6-Hydroxydopamine Model of Parkinson's disease
Student: Adam Ghoweri
Mentor: Dr. Cecilia Fox
The Neuroprotective Potential of Combined Antioxidant Therapy in a 6-OHDA Rat Model of Parkinson's Disease
Student: Chelsea Mursch
Mentor : Dr. Cecilia Fox
The Formation of Mathematical Concepts in Semantic Memory: Does Explicit Integration Facilitate Transfer?
Student: Mary Petrik
Mentor: Dr. Sarah Johnson
Investigation of Visual Learning in Wild-type and Presenilin Mutant Drosophila melanogaster Larvae
Student: Anika Riaz
Mentor: Dr. Christopher Jones
Neuroprotective Properties of DNSP-11 in a TaClo Model of Parkinson's Disease
Student: Sasha Halasz
Mentor: Dr. Cecilia Fox
Emotional Memory in Aging and Alzheimer's Disease: Evidence from Implicit and Explicit Memory Systems
Student: Haley Skymba
Mentor: Dr. Sarah Johnson
The effects of DNSP-11, a pro-peptide of GDNF, on the MPP+ rat model of Parkinson's disease
Student: Rianne Stowell
Mentor: Dr. Cecilia Fox
The Effect of Pheromones on EGR-1 Activation in GnRH-I Neurons in Male Rats
Student: Shazmin Gangji
Mentor: Jennifer Swann
Olfactory-Gustatory Associative Learning and Memory Differences Between MutantPresenilin and Wild-type Drosophila melanogaster Larvae
Student: Rania Hanna
Mentor: Dr. Christopher Jones
Sex Differences in the Ability to Learn and Localize Sound in the Rat Model
Student: Anna Whetstone
Mentors: Drs. Stacey Zaremba and Sarah Johnson
Dietary Selenium Protects Dopamine Levels and Improves Motor Behavior in the 6-Hydroxydopamine Rat Model of Parkinson's Disease
Student: Nicole Hadeed
Mentor: Dr. Cecilia Fox
Investigating the impact of lansoprazole on cognitive deficits in a rat model of Alzheimer's disease
Student: Jaime Renninger
Mentor: Dr. Cecilia Fox
Dietary Selenium Protects Dopamine Levels and May Improve Motor Behavior in the 6-Hydroxydopamine Rat Model of Parkinson's Disease
Student: Tyler McCambridge
Mentor: Dr. Cecilia Fox
Selenium as a Neuroprotective Agent in a 6-hydroxydopamine Rat Model of Parkinson's Disease: a Behavioral Study
Student: Andrew Goodbred
Mentor: Dr. Cecilia Fox
Effect of Dietary Selenium Exposure in the Striatal 6-OHDA Model of Parkinson's Disease
Student: Kanizeh Visram
Mentor: Dr. Cecilia Fox
Summer Research Experiences Beyond Moravian University
Students are encouraged to engage in scientific discovery either through our Student Opportunities for Academic Research (SOAR) program or the National Science Foundations supported Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. Several of our Neuroscience majors have participated in our Moravian University SOAR program almost annually. Others have gone to REU programs at institutions such as Albert Einstein Medical School, Carnegie Mellon and Stanford University. River Jordan, a Moravian alum who participated in an REU at Stanford University, earned his MD at Geisinger Medical School and is doing his residency in Neurology at Duke University.
