Olivia Haller, B.A. and Holly Aleksonis, M.A. have a new publication titled “White matter hyperintensities relate to executive dysfunction, apathy, but not disinhibition in long-term adult survivors of pediatric cerebellar tumor” in Neuroimage: Clinical. You can read the article here. Congrats Holly and Olivia!

We are proud to share that Eric Semmel has recently received two student awards! Eric was awarded the Richard Morrell Outstanding Graduate Student in Psychology Award for demonstrating breadth in his development as a psychologist including excelling in professional development, teaching, and service. Eric was also granted the GSU Dissertation Award for his dissertation entitled “Graph analysis of resting state functional brain networks and associations with cognitive outcomes in survivors of pediatric brain tumor.” We are so happy to see Eric’s impressive work recognized!

Congratulations to Olivia Haller for the successful funding of the grant she co-wrote with Ciera Lewis, Caitlin Schneider, Anne Wekheiser, and Simone Sanders entitled Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP): A Meaningful Mentoring Extension of the Student Training Equity Project (STEP) Pilot. The grant will build on the existing STEP project, which aims to facilitate admission to graduate training for racially and ethnically diverse students. The new grant, PREP, will have an increased focus on graduate to undergraduate mentorship.  

It was great having everyone together to celebrate the end of the semester and kick off the holiday season. Thanks to everyone for their hard work this year and we hope you enjoy the time off.

Milu Parrilla has been granted the Neuroscience Award at the 2021 Virtual Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference for her oral presentation entitled Sleep Quality and Executive Function in a Diverse Sample of Healthy College Students. In addition, she was the runner-up for the Diversity Award. The judging panel noted that Milu demonstrated “superior ownership” of her research topic and data analysis. They also complimented her on her clear and thoughtful responses to questions. Congratulations Milu!

Congratulations to Olivia Haller for proposing her Master’s thesis titled “Identifying Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Its Symptoms: A Diffusion Tensor Imaging Machine Learning Study“. Way to go Olivia!

Rella Kautiainen, M.A. has successfully proposed her Ph.D. dissertation project! Rella’s project will investigate single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with acquired brain injury using machine learning methods. Congratulations Rella!

Congrats to former King Lab research assistant, Cory Inman for recently receiving a National Science Foundation grant for his work studying storage and retrieval of information in the brain using augmented reality and deep brain recordings. Way to go Cory!

Eric Semmel, M.A. has a new publication titled “Graph Theoretical Analysis of Brain Network Characteristics in Brain Tumor Patients: A Systematic Review” in Neuropsychology Review. You can read the article here. Congrats Eric!

Congratulations to Holly Aleksonis, M.A. for publishing her most recent article titled “White matter hyperintensity volumes are related to processing speed in long-term survivors of childhood cerebellar tumors” in the Journal of Neuro-Oncology. This article is based on Holly’s findings from her Master’s thesis. You can read the article here. Way to go Holly!