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Becker’s Brain and Behavior lab class leans into collaboration with high school students

Communications — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 18:20:34 +0000

Dr. Elizabeth Becker, associate professor of neuroscience at ��ý��Ƶ, has taken lessons in her Brain and Behavior laboratory class beyond campus. Nine students from Appleton East High School joined her students earlier this year for a series of collaborative sessions.

“They’re getting their hands on some of the different techniques, some of the behavioral assays, and even serving as a grant review panel for our students when they first present their ideas,” Becker said.

Brain and Behavior is a laboratory class in which students design a research project, then apply their questions to brain surgery on rats. The students are studying brain lesions in the rats.

“Some of the students want to understand what the resultant effect is and understand the brain-behavior relationship in greater detail,” Becker said. “Other students are actually trying to see if they can recover function by using different drugs or different therapies.”

Nine Appleton East High School students observed lab work in the Brain and Behavior class. (Photo by Danny Damiani)

The idea for collaboration with Appleton East students came about when Becker noticed that even when students were excited about the class, the presentation element didn’t draw the same passion.

“I, as a scientist, regularly communicate my work, and I’m pretty excited about it, but it didn’t seem like they had that same level of enthusiasm,” she said. “And then I thought when I present, I’m going to a conference. I’m speaking to people who are really passionate about the same topics, or I’m educating the community.”

Becker pitched the idea of bringing high school students to campus to Karen Koss, who teaches psychology at Appleton East High School.

“The role of the high school students was to help the senior students practice translating their research goals and outcomes in such a way that is accessible to all people,” Koss said. “My students served as research assistants, observers, and even participants in the formulation, execution, and evaluation of the research projects of the college students.”

The collaboration was beneficial to both groups of students.

“My students benefited in several ways from this collaboration,” Koss said. “They were able to overcome their initial intimidation of the college environment and became comfortable. Some of the students who did not consider college in their future began to see that it could be a place where they belonged. Some of the students started to consider neuroscience, medicine, or other subjects as something that is possibly obtainable.”

For high school students who spend most of their time in the classroom, this also provided an opportunity to see the process of real research.

“Oftentimes in education, students are so focused on grades and tests that they fail to become inspired,” Koss said. “This program was a very unique opportunity for students to become truly inspired.”

��ý��Ƶ senior Nazlee Harunani, who took Brain and Behavior two years ago, before the integration of the high school students, worked as a teacher’s assistant in the class this year. She said the high school students opened the floor to questions that otherwise may never have been asked.

“They would ask anything,” Harunani said. “It was helpful for the students to hear that. I think it helped them realize that science is about learning, and science is about coming up with new questions.”

When Harunani, from Rockford, Illinois, took the class, she was a pre-med student, and her study was on whether a lesion in the hypothalamus would affect thermoregulation. After taking Brain and Behavior, she realized her love for research. Now, Harunani is majoring in neuroscience and psychology.

“Genuinely, this class completely changed my life,” she said. “This is where my love for research started. Dr. Becker made me feel like I could do anything I wanted.”

In 2020, Becker published a paper on the effect this teaching style had on students, and she was invited to speak about it at the Society for Neuroscience conference.

“I think it’s really rewarding to engage students in service learning,” she said. “There is no doubt that they are doing a tremendous amount of service for others, and sometimes we think it’s a gift that we give, but it’s a gift that gives back in dividends when we engage in that work.”

Becker said Jedidiah Rex, instructional designer and technologist at ��ý��Ƶ, provided invaluable assistance in setting up the technology for the class. And a faculty teaching grant helped fund the ��.��

“It really is a collaborative effort,” Becker said. “There are multiple layers of teaching and learning that are happening throughout the term.”

Becker said she aims to repeat this process for upcoming iterations of the Brain and Behavior ��.��

“Now that it’s set up, I can’t imagine it would be of service to students moving forward not to do so,” she said. “Their mastery is just so much deeper and greater when they have someone to explain it to.”

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Cross-discipline research blends psychology, music in study of vocal performance anxiety

Communications — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 14:58:15 +0000

A cross-discipline research project—spanning music, neuroscience, and psychology—brought together two ��ý��Ƶ professors and two dual-degree students to study how improvisation exercises can help reduce performance anxiety for vocalists.

The project began a year ago when Dr. Karen Leigh-Post, professor of music, applied voice, and voice science and pedagogy, recognized that a vocal exercise she was using with her students in the Conservatory of Music was resulting in better performances. She brought this to the attention of Dr. Elizabeth Becker, associate professor of neuroscience and a behavioral neuroendocrinologist. Together, with dual-degree students Ryan Saladin ’24 and Dana Abbo ’24, both seniors at the time, an interdepartmental research project was born.

“The exercise is comprised of short melodic fragments on solfege, which the singer uses to improvise their own patterns and melodies at varying levels of complexity,” Abbo said.

The improvisation exercise used in the study is accessible to young musicians. Leigh-Post designed it to train feed-forward processing to optimize one’s performance. She sensed this style of exercise aided in reducing performance anxiety as well.

“You’re always looking at what’s next, and that’s the benefit of improv,” said Leigh-Post. “You’re always feeding forward, looking at what’s next instead of judging what has happened.”

Her curiosity brought her to Becker.

“60% of musicians experience performance anxiety, and we know who doesn’t—that’s jazz musicians, who are always doing improvisation,” Becker said.

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Becker, who graduated from ��ý��Ƶ with a dual degree in voice performance and psychology, was intrigued. She wanted to explore this relationship between the vocal exercise and the performances that follow.

“What I really wanted to ask, empirically and biologically, was what are the mechanisms that underlie the perceivable differences in performance?” she said. “Is it through stress and anxiety reduction?”

The study included volunteer singers who underwent a mock audition with professional adjudicators and written feedback, simulating a real environment that can breed anxiety for performers. In the first round of mock auditions, the volunteers were asked to warm up with their own techniques. The singers’ salivary cortisol was tested, and the researchers then asked participants about their levels of stress and anxiety.

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Over the course of two weeks, participants were taught to use the improvisation exercise before their performance, and the mock audition process was repeated. This time, the singers practiced the improvisation exercise before performing in front of the panel.

“We found that upon arrival, everyone was experiencing a similar level of stress at both the first and second auditions,” Becker said. “We found that cortisol levels during performance were significantly reduced at the second event after they’d practice that intervention right before their performance. They also reported feeling less stress and less anxiety. It was clinically relevant.”

Both Saladin and Abbo graduated in June with dual degrees. Their interdepartmental interests made this study possible. Having students with expertise in both the Conservatory and the Psychology Department served to bridge the gaps, and Becker and Leigh-Post said they couldn’t have done it without them.

“Dr. Becker was really in tune with my experiences as a double-degree student in neuroscience and music performance because she was also a double-degree student at ��ý��Ƶ, and she immediately presented the idea to me of being a leader on a collaborative project with Dr. Leigh-Post and the Conservatory voice department,” Saladin said. “That’s a really special and particularly ‘��ý��Ƶ’ set of circumstances.”

Abbo, who majored in music performance (voice) and English, found it equally appealing.

“This project has affirmed to me how fun and rewarding it is to collaborate with people with different areas of expertise,” Abbo said. “None of us could have produced this research or this paper with just our individual skill sets.”

A year later, the project continues to have legs. The research was presented at The Voice Foundation conference in the spring, bringing it to a cross-institutional audience of scholars. The researchers also plan to present it to other voice teachers later this year. Meanwhile, they are preparing a manuscript for publication.

Abbo is currently in London pursuing a master’s degree in modern literature. Saladin is a graduate student in trombone performance at DePaul University.

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10 new tenure-track faculty join ��ý��Ƶ for 2021-22 academic year

Communications — Tue, 14 Dec 2021 16:23:34 +0000

��ý��Ƶ has announced the hiring of 10 new tenure-track faculty, all beginning at the start of the 2021-22 academic year.

Three of the new faculty will fill positions in the Psychology department, including two newly created endowed professorships, one in cognitive neuroscience and one in collaboration and organizational psychology.

The influx of new faculty brings talent and experience across the college and the Conservatory, including in environmental studies, ethnic studies, history, philosophy, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and vocal coaching.

“I am absolutely thrilled to be welcoming such a talented, dedicated group of scholars to the ��ý��Ƶ faculty,” said Catherine Kodat, provost and dean of faculty. “Our new colleagues will fortify strengths in existing academic programs and help us develop new areas of focus.”

The new hires include:

Brittany Alperin

Brittany Alperin, assistant professor of psychology. She will be the inaugural holder of the Singleton Professorship in Cognitive Neuroscience. She comes from the University of Richmond, where she’s been a visiting assistant professor since 2019. She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and neuroscience from Hampshire College and a Ph.D. in behavioral neuroscience from Oregon Health and Science University.

Sigma Colon

Sigma Colón, assistant professor of environmental and ethnic studies. She has been teaching at ��ý��Ƶ since 2017, first in postdoctoral NEH fellowships in geography and history, then as a visiting assistant professor of environmental and ethnic studies. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in history from the University of Arizona and a Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University.

Kelly Culhane

Kelly Culhane, assistant professor of chemistry. She has been working as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota since 2019. She joins the Chemistry department after earning a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from St. Olaf College and a Ph.D. in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University.

Scott Dixon

Scott Dixon, assistant professor of philosophy. He has been on the faculty at Ashoka University in Haryana, India since 2015. He studied philosophy and German at the University of Montana and earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California, Davis.

Amanda Draheim

Amanda Draheim, assistant professor of psychology. She joins the Psychology department at ��ý��Ƶ after recently completing her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Georgia State University. She previously earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Trinity University.

Alex Heaton

Alex Heaton, assistant professor of mathematics. Beginning in 2019, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences and the Math+ Berlin Mathematics Research Center, both in Germany. He then joined the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences in Toronto as a postdoctoral fellow. He earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Margaret Koker

Margaret Koker, assistant professor of physics. She has been teaching in the Physics department at ��ý��Ƶ as a visiting assistant professor since 2018. She previously worked as a postdoctoral research fellow, a research assistant, and an engineering lecturer at Cornell University and as a Beamline scientist at the University of Chicago. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Boston University, a master’s from the University of Illinois, and her doctor rerum naturalium from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany.

Linnea Ng

Linnea Ng, assistant professor of psychology. She will be the inaugural holder of the Hurvis Professorship in Collaboration and Organizational Psychology at ��ý��Ƶ. She is completing a Ph.D. in industrial organizational psychology at Rice University. She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Davidson College.

Kristin Roach

Kristin Roach, assistant professor of music (vocal coaching). Her recent accomplishments include work as a vocal coach at the Chautauqua Opera Theatre, conductor with the Pacific Opera Project, musical director and conductor with Spotlight on Opera, and conductor with Vocal Academy of Orvieto. She earned a bachelor’s degree in applied piano and a master of music in piano performance/literature and accompanying/chamber music, both from Eastman School of Music.

Betsy Schlabach

Elizabeth Schlabach, associate professor of history. She comes to ��ý��Ƶ following eight years as a member of the faculty at Earlham College. She previously worked as a visiting professor for five years at The College of William & Mary. She earned a bachelor’s degree in history and theology from Valparaiso University, a master’s in American Studies from Lehigh University, and a Ph.D. in American Studies from St. Louis University.

Endowed professorships

The hiring of Alperin as ��ý��Ƶ’s first Singleton Professor in Cognitive Neuroscience and Ng as the first Hurvis Professor in Collaboration and Organizational Psychology marks a significant milestone in the Psychology department.

The two endowed positions came out of the hugely successful Be the Light! campaign that over the course of seven years raised $232.6 million and added five endowed professorships.

The Singleton professorship elevates ��ý��Ƶ’s work in the area of cognitive neuroscience and the Hurvis professorship allows for the exploration of the psychology of collaboration, a growing field that has relevance across the curriculum as students prepare for life after ��ý��Ƶ.

Kodat called the filling of the two endowed positions “especially gratifying,” a tangible result of the .

“These positions—in organizational psychology and cognitive neuroscience—will help advance the curricular innovation that was one of the centerpieces of the campaign,” she said.

The 10 new faculty begin their first academic year when Fall Term opens Sept. 13.

“I look forward to a long and happy collaboration,” Kodat said.

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Cognitive Neuroscience Archives - �������ý��Ƶ