Yesterday, Jason successfully defended his dissertation titled, “Hypothalamic Gene Therapy by an Autoregulatory BDNF Vector to Prevent Melanocortin-4-Receptor-Deficient Obesity”.

This past Monday, Kaitlin presented and defended her dissertation titled, “Regulation of hippocampal memory by the cell-autonomous hippocampal circadian clock”.

Kaitlin graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire with a B.S. in Biology and a minor in Neuroscience. As a graduate student in the laboratory of Dr. Karl Obrietan, Kaitlin studied the modulation of learning and memory by the hippocampal circadian clock. Kaitlin has authored four publications (two first author), with an additional first author paper soon to be submitted. She was awarded multiple fellowships, including a University Fellowship and a Presidential Fellowship. Following graduation, Kaitlin will go on to a postdoctoral position in the lab of Michael Nitabach at Yale University, studying learning in the nematode C. elegans.

In March, Anzela defended her dissertation titled, “Blood-borne factors regulate monocyte function during psychosocial stress: a case of corticosterone and IL-6”.

Anzela completed her undergraduate degree in neuroscience from Bates College, Maine. She worked as a research assistant at University of Maryland, College Park before joining the neuroscience graduate program at OSU in 2013. As a graduate student in the laboratories of Dr. John Sheridan and Dr. Jonathan Godbout, Anzela studied the mechanisms underlying central and peripheral immune response to psychosocial stress, and their implications for behavioral deficits following stress. Following graduation, Anzela will start her postdoctoral research on communication across the blood-brain barrier in the lab of Dr. William Banks at Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Seattle, Washington.