After a decade in the lab, I have a lot of cool findings to share. And since it can take a lifetime to get it all published in peer-reviewed academic journals, I’m doing my best to let it this research see the light of day by posting it here.
Emma’s PhD Defense
On April 4, 2023, Emma defended her PhD dissertation in the Neuroscience and Behavior program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst under the guidance of Dr. Elena Vazey. The talk included female/male comparisons in the brain and decision-making behavior as it relates to norepinephrine. The link to the full recording can be found here.
UMass Amherst Neuroscience and Behavior Seminar
In my third year of grad school, I was asked to give the weekly NSB seminar talk. I used this opportunity to describe the findings from my control experiments and debunk the myth that pharmaceuticals like Strattera enhance your brain power. At least for my rats who weren’t exhibiting signs of inattention or hyperactivity before…
Society for Neuroscience
Read to the end for the complete story! I attended the annual SfN meeting in 2018 during my first year of grad school. At that time, I had conducted decision-making experiments in female rats so that the results could be compared to my advisor’s previous findings in male rats. We found that males were more…
Gordon Research Conference
I attended the GRC for catecholamines (a category of chemical including dopamine, noradrenaline, and adrenaline) Summer 2019. There, I presented a poster comparing the effects on decision-making behavior of manipulating dopamine and noradrenaline vs noradrenaline alone. From the experiments I conducted, females seem to be more strongly affected by dopamine and noradrenaline manipulations, while males…
Emma’s Science Cafe (Video)
If you want to hear about some of my favorite findings from my PhD and my general thoughts on research and science communication, then you’ll love this video.
Three Minute Thesis (People’s Choice Award)
Thank you to everyone who voted for my Three Minute Thesis! I am proud to be your People’s Choice winner of the annual graduate competition held by UMass Amherst! If you’d like to read more about how the Three Minute Thesis changed from year to year during a global pandemic, check out my article posted on…
Gender in Science Radio Interview
My friend Louis Colaruotolo has an awesome radio show called “We Know Some Stuff” in which he interviews PhD students about their science passions. He is earning his Food Science PhD in Canada, and invited me to be an *international* guest on the show. In my episode, we discussed gender in science from the struggles…
Academic publications:
Selective Attention Controls Olfactory Decisions and the Neural Encoding of Odors
The Yeast Polo Kinase Cdc5 Regulates the Shape of the Mitotic Nucleus
If you’d like to be notified when a new publication comes out, subscribe here!
Science by Emma Dauster 