Graduate Student (2023-2024; co-supervision with Dr. Smith).
Currently: Research Associate, Nationwide Children's Hospital

Savanna attended the University of Kentucky where she got her B.S. in Neuroscience. She completed a Master's in Applied Neuroscience at OSU. While in the Vonder Haar Lab, she explored learning-based interventions, impulsive choice and its underlying neural circuitry. Her thesis focused on delineating aspects of timing precision versus delay evaluation to self-control improvements.

Master's Student (2022-2023; co-supervision with Dr. Vodovotz)
Currently:

Jenn's project focused on therapeutic effects of a blueberry-derived anthocyananin and galactooligosaccharide diet to mitigate the neuroinflammatory effects of lipopolysaccharide administration.

Graduate Student (2020-2023)
Currently: Student Services, James Madison University

Sarah completed a master's degree at OSU. She worked on projects exploring the influence of audiovisual cues on choice behavior after TBI, the effects of closed-head injury, and piloting calcium imaging methodology.

Graduate Student (2018-2023)

Kristen worked on a variety of projects, ultimately publishing 5 papers. The projects she lead focused on understanding how neuroinflammation leads to behavioral impairment in the context of TBI and an infection-like challenge.

Postdoctoral Fellow (2023-2024)

Peyton worked on data analytics projects in the lab. She evaluated the use of Bayesian priors to improve the ability to detect statistical effects in preclinical studies. She published two articles with the lab.

Postdoctoral Fellow (2022)
Graduate Student (2018-2022)

Michelle worked on a variety of projects while in the lab, ultimately publishing 7 articles. The first half of her time was spent on animal projects evaluating the effects of TBI. This resulted in two first-author publications and launched our microbiome research. The second half of her time was focused on data analytic methodology assessment where she demonstrated the devastating effects of not accounting for inter-dependence in data.

Graduate Student (2017-2020)

Chris graduated with a M.S. from the IRL. He worked on a variety of projects, including piloting out stroke models, working up stains, and helping with numerous behavioral experiments. He specifically developed out a project comparing measures of depressive-like behavior for chronic TBI in conjunction with Michelle Frankot, and a project establishing the use of environmental cues to model "cognitive rehabilitation" in rats. This work is being developed for publication.

Postdoctoral Fellow (2019)
Graduate Student (2017-2019)

Jenny started helping with projects while she was finishing her Ph.D. in another laboratory. She then continued on briefly as a postdoc before finding a more permanent postion. During her time, she was instrumental in bringing several projects to publication, including our first IRL manuscript on decision-making after TBI. She also conducted a follow-up study to this comparing unilateral TBIs to bilateral frontal injuries, and wrote a review summarizing changes to the monoamine systems after TBI.

Discovery PREP Postbac (2023-2024)

Katie lead a behavioral study to test potential beneficial effects of a prebiotic diet on risky decision-making and other deficits from TBI.

Research Technician & Postbac (2022-2023)
Currently: Ph.D. Program University of Utah (Neuroscience)

Noah helped with multiple projects during his time as a technician. He lead a project using behavioral pharmacology methods to determine the effects of dopamine receptor modulation on risky decision-making after TBI.

Research Technician & Postbac (2019-2020)
Currently: Neuroscience Ph.D. Program, Monash Univ

During her brief time as a technician prior to starting graduate training, Lauren helped with multiple projects. She was instrumental in finishing studies on cognitive rehabilitation which led to a publication in 2024. Lauren is now at Monash, where she is studying neuroimmune contributions to dysfunction after TBI.

Undergraduate RA (2023-2024)
Currently: Technician, OSU

Max helped with multiple behavioral projects and took a particular interest in projects lead by Dr. Smith focused around modulation of impulsive choice.

Undergraduate RA (2021-2023)

Carissa helped with multiple behvioral studies. She was also instrumental in helping process fecal DNA to examine the gut microbiome of rats across multiple studies.

Undergraduate RA (2021-2023)
Currently: Neuroscience Ph.D. Program Univ. Michigan

Reagan worked on a number of projects as an undergrad and oversaw a study evaluating the effects of mild food restriction on the gut microbiome, TBI, and risky choice. She then led her own thesis project developing a version of a foraging task to evaluate sensitivity to diminishing returns.

Undergraduate RA (2021-2022)
Currently: Technician, OSU

Jenna worked on a number of projects as an undergrad and helped oversee a study evaluating the effects of mild food restriction on the gut microbiome, TBI, and risky choice. She then led her own summer project evaluating how TBI changes the evaluation of reward-paired cues. She transitioned to a technician position in the lab after graduating.

Undergraduate RA (2021)
Currently: Ph.D. Program University of Utah (Neuroscience)

Noah worked on a number of projects as we re-started our laboratory at OSU, helping with a study examining the effects of mild food restriction on the gut microbiome, TBI, and risky choice. He transitioned to a technician position before starting a Ph.D. program.

Undergraduate RA (2019-2021)
Currently: DVM Program, Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine

Alyssa helped across a variety of behavioral studies.

Undergraduate RA (2018-2021).
MS: Organizational Behavior, Cornell Univ.
Virginia worked on multiple projects during her time in the lab, contributing to two different publications. One of these was a result of her senior thesis project which pivoted to a data analytic focus due COVID-related lab restrictions.

Undergraduate RA (2019-2020).
Currently: Behavioral Neuroscience Ph.D. Program, Univ Connecticut

Matt worked on several animal research projects prior to the COVID-19 related lab closures in 2020. He pivoted to a retrospective analysis of data as part of his capstone focused on evaluating whether the Matching Law captured brain injury effects observed on the Rodent Gambling Task. This was later published in 2022 as part of a larger paper.

Undergraduate RA (2019)
Laboratory Technician (2020)
BA: West Virginia University
Currently: Neuroscience Ph.D. Program, Monash Univ.

Lauren worked on many different projects during her time in the lab as an undergraduate. She conducted a study looking at conditioned facilitation, or Pavlovian-to-Instrumental Transfer (PIT). This work was published alongside work with Cassie Modrak. Lauren became a technician after finishing before starting a Ph.D. at Monash University.

Undergraduate RA (2016-2020)
B.S.: West Virginia University
Currently: Psychology Ph.D. Program, Univ. Kentucky

Trinity spent her full 4 undergrad years as a member of the IRL. She conducted research on a variety of topics and helped publish the first study which came out of our lab on how TBI affects decision-making under risk. Her subsequent work explored how the therapeutic candidate methylphenidate affected decision-making in TBI. This work is still being developed for publication.

SUPRE (2019)
BS: Univ Nebraska: Omaha
Currently: Behavioral Neuroscience Ph.D. Program, West Virginia Univ.

Bryan participated in the APA Summer Undergraduate Psychology Research Experience program. He worked on a project with Michelle Frankot on how high-fat diets affect outcomes after TBI. He presented this work at the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience session at SFN.

SUPRE (2019)
BS: Univ Massachusetts: Amherst

Brianna participated in the APA Summer Undergraduate Psychology Research Experience program. She worked on a project exploring how methylphenidate effects decision-making revolving around loss. She presented this work at the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience session at SFN.

Undergraduate RA (2017-2019)
BA: West Virginia University
MS: I/O Psychology: Univ. Central Florida

Tasso assisted in many different behavioral studies, but his biggest focus was on statistical analyses of TBI data. He presented a poster on this at the International Neurotrauma Symosium, and also developed a capstone project comparing different analysis techniques for mild TBI data.

Undergraduate RA (2018-2019)
BS: West Virginia University
Currently: Behavioral Neuroscience Ph.D. Program, Univ. Florida

Cassie's work primarily focused on how reactivity to cues is changed as a result of TBI. She conducted a capstone project where she identified an interesting phenotype of increased goal-tracking behavior after TBI and facilitated extinction. These data suggest that conditioned reinforcers like cues may not be as efficacious in TBI populations. This work is currently under review.

Undergraduate RA (2016-2018)
Laboratory Technician (2018)
BA: West Virginia University
Currently: Behavior Therapist

Binxing helped with projects as the lab was starting and contributed to the very first publication from the IRL. She also helped with several other experiments, including our first neuromodulation one and others looking at methylphenidate. After completing her BA, she served as a lab technician for a summer before moving on to her next step. She is currently working as a behavior therapist and looking to go back to school for applied behavior analysis

Undergraduate RA (2016-2018)
BA: West Virginia University
Currently:

Taylor conducted a capstone project exploring how the ability to time events is disrupted after TBI. This may be a key component of impulsivity and understanding it better could lead to therapies for TBI. She ultimately published this work in Behavioural Brain Research. Since leaving, she has gone in a more clinical direction, working with populations with behavioral problems. She is now getting a Master's degree in counseling.

Undergraduate RA (2017-2018)
BS: West Virginia University
Currently: M.D. Program West Virginia Univ.

Henna led our initial studies examining repeat concussive TBI. Her main project was characterizing how repeat injuries affect impulsivity and attention. These findings are currently under review to be published. Since then, she has gone on to obtain a Master's in Biomedical Science.

Undergraduate RA (2017-2018)
BA: West Virginia University
Currently: Smithers Pharmaceutical Development Services

Caitlyn worked on a variety of projects while in lab, ultimately taking a larger role on some of our concussion experiments. She presented on this work at the SFN meeting. Since then, she completed a postbac at the NIH and has recently taken a role in industry doing pharmaceutical work.

Undergraduate RA (2016-2017)
B.S. WVU
D.O. Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine

Chris helped with multiple projects as the lab initially started up. He took a larger role in helping with behavioral testing for closed-head injury studies, ultimately helping co-author a publication looking at multiple types of impulsivity after repeat concussion-like injury.

WVU SURI Program (2017)
B.S. St. Catharine University

Kristen joined the lab as part of the Summer Undergraduate Research Internship through WVU's HSC. She began work looking at the effects of a chronic inflammatory challenge on depressive-like behaviors. Since then, she has joined the lab as a graduate student and is continuing work in this area, focusing on neuroinflammation on its own and in the context of TBI.