Histology
Melissa Gandhi is a senior studying genetics with a minor in psychology. She aspires to become a genetic counselor. Multitalented in nearly every lab procedure: she is studying Parvalbumin interneurons - where they are localized in the deep dorsal horn and what their cellular lineage is.
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Simona Alomary is a second year student at Rutgers University. She is a part of the SAS Honors Program, majoring in Cell Biology and Neuroscience, with a minor in Cognitive Science.
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Tara Shrier is an SAS Honors Program junior, majoring in Cell Biology and Neuroscience. She is currently combining her love for art and science: creating 3D reconstructions of spinal cord somatosensation-to-locomotor interneurons, characterizing and quantifying their synaptic prowess, and studying their morphologies to demystify their functions.
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ANIMAL BEHAVIOR
PAIN/ITCH
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Carina is a premed sophomore majoring in biology at Rutgers University. She is working on developing behavioral assays to better understand the role of dorsal horn processing in tactile allodynia and itch.
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LOCOMOTION
Michael Haas is an undergraduate student at Rutgers University who is majoring in Computer Engineering and minoring in Computer Science. He is currently working on the development of computer applications to sort data outputted by our various lab instruments and use said data to generate visual graphs representing our results, all controlled by a 'user-friendly' GUI.
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Kinematics
Jessica Romero is a rising Junior currently majoring in Cell Biology and Neuroscience. When she is not in the lab, she loves her job as an EMT and is working towards her goal of one day becoming a doctor.
Ashay Chandra is a senior at Rutgers University majoring in Cell Biology and Neuroscience. He is writing an Honors Thesis under the mentorship of Dr. Abraira to quantify gait deficits after specific spinal cord development gene deletion.
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Balance
Andrea Martinez is a recent graduate of Rutgers University with a BA in Cell Biology and Neuroscience and a Minor in Spanish. She works as a research assistant on the behavioral component of Dr. Abraira’s somatosensory lab.
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TOUCH
Sarah Zanzoul is an undergraduate student at Rutgers University studying cell biology and neuroscience. She is driven by challenge and is motivated to further understand the mechanisms within the nervous system.
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Pooja Jain
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Nehali Lathia is a rising senior majoring in Genetics and Psychology. Throughout her senior year, she will be working on developing an acoustic and tactile prepuslse inhibition experiment.
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SOCIAL INTERACTION
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Archana Raghunath is a third-year student in the Honors College studying Genetics with minors in Political Science and Psychology. She is currently studying signaling in the spinal cord and its role in social touch and socialization.
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Julianne McGinnis - our expert in both mouse husbandry and behavior - is a Rutgers senior, majoring in Biology. Amiable to both our fellow researchers and animals, she is dependably multitalented in her pursuits to comprehend somatosensation's behavioral effects.
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Akhil Patel is a junior at Rutgers University majoring in Biology and minoring in Economics. His main focus in the lab is studying the circuit of social touch both with behavior and immunohistochemistry.
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MOUSE GENETICS/HUSBANDRY
Gloria Abbas-Zadeh is a freshman in the SAS Honors Program, majoring in Cellular Biology and Neuroscience. She assists our lab manager. She hopes to become a physician and enjoys volunteering as an EMT
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Min Soang is a junior at Rutgers University studying animal science pre-veterinary medicine. She loves working with animals!
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ALUMNI
Emily Behan was the lab's mouse room technician. She was responsible for the maintenance and welfare of the mouse colony.
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James was a visiting summer intern investigating the role of dorsal horn Cdh3+ inhibitory interneurons in gait transitions through behavioral and histological analyses. Fascinated by the neural underpinnings of behavior and cognition, James intends to pursue an MD-PhD in Neuroscience.
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