Jacqueline Villalobos is a first-generation college student at the University of California Davis. She will be majoring in Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior as a rising junior. This summer she got the opportunity to work with Dr. Diasynou Fioravante at the Center for Neuroscience in Davis. Her work included animal behavior experiments and exploring how mutations cause neurodevelopmental disorders such as Autism.

Benjamin Luo is a senior computer science and neuroscience double major studying at Pomona College in Claremont, CA . Benjamin is a second year Johns Hopkins Neuroscience Scholar, currently researching in the MIM/Rananather Lab, under direction of Dr. Kwame Kutten and Dr. Tilak Rananather. His research this summer involves the histological validation of the gray-white matter boundary in feline MR images as well as reconstruction of the feline auditory cortex based on 2-D histology slices.

My name is Brandon Villanueva Sanchez. I am from Omaha, Nebraska and am a rising junior at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. I am a Neuroscience Major with a Chemistry Minor. I currently work in Dr. Gregory Carr’s Drug Discovery Unit at The Lieber Institute for Brain Development which focuses on developing novel therapeutics and treatments for cognitive deficits in neuropsychiatric disorders. 

Darius Carr is studying gangliosides and surface glycan binding in Dr. Ronald Schnaar’s Lab. He is attending Temple University as a rising Junior.

Hi. My name is Rose Broderick and I am from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I am a rising junior at Lafayette College, where I study psychology. At Johns Hopkins, I work in Dr. Marco Grados‘ lab. ​

 ​Favorite quote: “What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.”​
– Oscar Wilde

Shahin is a junior international student at Davidson College studying computer science and neuroscience. He is a second-year scholar working at the Wu Lab in the Department of Neurology, where he studies the neural and molecular basis of sleep in mice and flies. His research experience at JHNSP has cultivated his interest in sleep medicine and psychiatry, and he plans to pursue an MD-PhD in the future.​

Quote: “Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.” -Viktor Frankl​

Valeria, originally from Mexico but attended and graduated high school in Brownsville, Texas, is a rising junior majoring in Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University. She has been conducting research at the Cognitive Neuropsychiatry Lab under Dr. Cherie Marvel since summer 2021. She hopes to continue doing neuroscience research and eventually pursue a PhD.​

Quote: “Reach for the stars, and if you don’t grab them. At least you’ll fall on top of the world.” – Pitbull 

​Aamina Dhar is a rising sophomore at Haverford College studying math and neuroscience. As a first year scholar in the program, she worked at the Radiology and AI Lab. Under the guidance of Dr. Haris Sair, she researched resting state fMRI and blood vessel tortuosity. 

Anna Arzeno is a rising junior at Hamilton College, where she is double-majoring in neuroscience and studio arts. This is her first year in the Johns Hopkins Neuroscience Scholars Program. This summer, Anna worked alongside Dr. Andrew Huhn on the optimization of treatment outcomes for patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) at the Maryland Opioid Research Laboratory (MOR). ​​

Quote: “Love and art will cure your soul.”

Ben Thompson is a sophomore at Wesleyan University majoring in Neuroscience. He is originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania. This past summer, Ben worked in the Coyne lab studying the pathways that lead to nuclear pore injury in ALS. His work focused on inducing nuclear pore complex injury in primary mouse neurons in order to create an animal model that mimics true C9orf72 neurodegeneration.

Charles Pinto is a Sophomore at the University of Toronto.

This summer Charles had the opportunity to work in Dr. Chavez-Valdez’s lab. The title of his research project was, “Human ApoE4 haplotype increases risk of mortality, seizures, and brain inflammation in mice following neonatal hypoxia-ischemia.”

Chibuikem Iheagwaram is a rising sophomore & Biochemistry major at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. He also takes classes at Vanderbilt University, TN. He is a first year scholar in the Johns Hopkins Neuroscience Scholars Program. This past summer, he worked in Dr. Ernst Niebur’s computational neuroscience lab under the mentorship of Dr. Aaron Sampson. For his research project, he focused on computational analysis of neural signals obtained from intracranial sEEG recordings of human patients with medically intractable, focal epilepsy. The overall goal of his project was to investigate the different brain regions involved in decision making between multiple choices, and how the brain adapts to more complex environments.​

Quote: “from whom much is given, much impact is expected.”​

My name is Elennyel Correa. I am a rising sophomore at Southwestern College in California. I worked at the Lauer Lab at the Johns Hopkins medical campus mainly with Dr. Amanda Lauer and Kali Burke. I would like to give a special thanks to them as well as to the postdoctoral researchers working there, they made this opportunity an enriching experience. I would also like to thank Dr. Amanda Brown, Ms. Heather Thomas, and Dr. Tilak Ratnanather for their encouragement and motivation throughout the development of the program.  I look forward to the next summer and to continue growing as a person and as a scientist. ​

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt. ​

Mark Jared Lewis is a rising Junior at the University of California, Los Angeles majoring in neuroscience. This is his first year as part of the Johns Hopkins Neuroscience Scholars Program, where he is researching the neural applications of 2-photon fiber endoscopy under Dr. Xingde Li and Dr. Haolin Zhang. He hopes to pursue an M.D./Ph.D. after graduation.​

​Noor Huma is a junior at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County majoring in Neuroscience. Previously a JHIBS intern in 2019, she worked with Dr. Li-Rong Shao researching the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) rat model for Infantile Spasms. ​
​
She currently works with Dr. Kelly Mills in his clinic researching the quantification of Parkinson’s Disease symptoms and compiling data from cognitive assessments in DBS patients.​

​“If I can help somebody as I pass along, then my living shall not be in vain.”