Fozdar Undergraduate Research Symposium
Date: April 29, 2026
Location: Chemistry Building 217
Join us for the Fozdar Undergraduate Research Symposium on April 29, 2026, in Chemistry Building 217. This annual event showcases the research conducted by our undergraduates in the Distinguished Major's Program. Coffee and pastries will kick off the morning, followed by PhD student talks, then a catered lunch and an afternoon of undergraduate presentations, culminating in award recognitions.
Schedule:
9:30 – 10:00 AM: Coffee / Pastries
10:00 – 12:00 PM: Graduate Presenters
- 10:00 Mona Fariborzi (Ribic Lab)
- Learning-driven structural and functional plasticity of spines in the mature mouse cortex
- 10:30 Wenjin Xu (Liu Lab)
- Glaucoma Disrupts Light-induced Anxiety-like Behavior via the Intrinsically Photosensitive Retinal Ganglion Cell - Perihabenula Circuit
- 11:00 Isabelle Ricci Sajonia (A. Guler Lab)
- Next-Generation GLP-1RAs Differ in Tolerability and Inhibit Brain Reward Circuits
12:00 – 1:00 PM: Catered Lunch (RSVP is closed)
1:00 – 4:00 PM: Undergraduate Presenters (15 min each)
- 1:00 Alex DeMark (Connelly Lab (Mentored by Allison Perkeybile, PhD)
- KLW2 Genetic Variation in Oxtr Modulates Response to Oxytocin-Induced Labor
- 1:15 Anne Schuster (Harris Lab)
- Examining the Role of the Brain Endothelium in Immunity to Toxoplasma gondii Infection
- 1:30 Kate Muir (Lynch Lab)
- The Use of Glucagon-Like Peptide 1 Receptor Agonists in the Prevention and Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder
- 1:45 Kelvin Chen (Ma Lab)
- CitH3 inhibition attenuates acute ischemic stroke via targeted immune modulation
- 2:00 Leah Cassidy (Long Term Memory Lab)
- Evidence for Load-Dependent Alpha Power Increases During Visual Working Memory Task
- 2:15-2:30 ~Break~
- 2:30 Lola Fuentes Brock (Long Term Memory Lab)
- Age-Related Changes in the Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Mnemonic States
- 2:45 Miranda Sculimbrene (Wenker Lab)
- Impaired CO2 Chemoreception: A Key Contributor to Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy
- 3:00 Nazanin Setayeshpour (Hirsh Lab)
- Do Changes in Arousal Affect Light Sensitivity for Phase Shifting in Flies?
- 3:15 Olivia Campbell (Lukens Lab)
- The Genotoxic Stress Sensor ZBP1 Drives Tau Pathology
- 3:30 Osaretin Lawani (Eyo Lab)
- From Breath to Brain: Characterizing Microglial and Vascular Responses in Respiratory Inflammation
4:00 PM - Cookie Break
4:15 PM - Fozdar Symposium Award Presentations
Founded by a UVA Neuroscience Graduate
The Fozdar Symposium for Undergraduate Neuroscience Research was founded in 2012 by Preeya Fozdar, MD, a UVA Neuroscience major (Class of 2012). Now a primary care physician practicing in the South Hills of Pittsburgh and the founder of Twin Hills Primary Care, Dr. Fozdar established a community-centered practice after completing her medical training at UPMC and working at Johns Hopkins.
As an alumna of the UVA Neuroscience program, Dr. Fozdar envisioned a symposium that would give fourth-year Neuroscience majors the opportunity to present their research while celebrating the end of the spring semester and the collective hard work of students and faculty.
The Fozdar Neuroscience Symposium provides a unique opportunity for NESC majors to share their research with the broader neuroscience community. Presentations are evaluated on scientific merit and overall presentation quality, with select students receiving awards in recognition of their accomplishments.
Past Symposiums
Spring 2025 Fozdar Symposium
The Spring 2025 Fozdar Symposium was held on April 30th, in Chemistry Building 217 from 10:30am-4:30pm. The symposium started with talks from 3 PhD students: Heather Barber (Sarah Kucenas lab) Radial astroglia cooperate with microglia to clear neuronal cell bodies during zebrafish optic tectum development; Katherine Canada (Kevin Pelphrey lab) Functional Protein Clustering Predicts Differential Gene Expression in Autism; and Addison Webster (John Campbell lab) Unraveling the Neural Circuitry of Energy Balance with Molecular Connectomics
The symposium continued in the afternoon with 11 talks from Neuroscience Distinguished Majors (shown above). We had 9 volunteer judges from the Program in Fundamental Neuroscience, Biology Department, Psychology Department, UVA Brain Institute, and the Neuroscience Graduate Program. We are proud to announce this year's Fozdar Symposium award winners!
Congratulations to our 2025 Award Winners
1st Place: Sydney Holton
Characterizing the Morphology and Connectivity of Geniculate Relay Cell Dendrites and Synaptic Inputs in P14 Mice
2nd Place: Rachel Johnston
Development of a Tissue-Engineered Model of the Blood-Brain Barrier
3rd Place: Charlotte Burgess
Seeking Synthetic Lethal Treatment for Myc-driven Medulloblastoma
2025 Presenters
Top row (left to right): Rachel Johnston, Sydney Holton, Campbell Coleman, Christopher Turner, Gianna Latorre, John Lee. Bottom row (left to right): Shrinidhi Kittur, Charlotte Burgess, Pritika Modhukuru, Faye Berry, Kate Meyer.
Symposium Schedule:
- 10:30am-12:00pm: We’ll start with three talks from some of our highly successful PhD students:
- Heather Barber: Sarah Kucenas lab: Radial astroglia cooperate with microglia to clear neuronal cell bodies during zebrafish optic tectum development.
- Katherine Canada: Kevin Pelphrey lab. Functional Protein Clustering Predicts Differential Gene Expression in Autism
- Addison Webster: John Campbell lab: Unraveling the Neural Circuitry of Energy Balance with Molecular Connectomics
- 12:00pm-1:00pm: Catered Lunch (RSVP is now closed)
- 1:00pm-4:00pm Fozdar Symposium Talks, presented by undergraduate NESC DMP students
- Gianna Latorre: Hungry & Stressed: Understanding Metabolic State Effects on Autonomic and Psychological Stress Responses in Humans
- Faye Berry: Characterizing the Mesencephalic Locomotor Region: A Neural Hub Coordinating Breathing With Locomotion
- Pritika Modhukuru: Cellular Garbage Pile-Up: Effects of Reduced Efferocytosis in Multiple Sclerosis
- Rachel Johnston: Development of a Tissue-Engineered Model of the Blood-Brain Barrier
- John Lee: Sarm1-Dependent Metabolic Reprogramming of Schwann Cells Following Nerve Injury
- Campbell Coleman: Estimated Axonal Latency Predicts Differences in N170 Latency in Autistic and Neurotypical Cohorts
- 2:30-2:45 - 15 min break
- Christopher Turner: Characterization of Cortico-Tectal Input Across Species: An Evolutionary Comparative Analysis
- Charlotte Burgess: Seeking Synthetic Lethal Treatment for Myc-driven Medulloblastoma
- Kate Meyer: Effect of Apoptotic Genes on Aberrant Glial Infiltration in Drosophila
- Shrinidhi Kittur: Vasoactive intestinal peptide-expressing interneurons are impaired in SCN8A epileptic encephalopathy
- Sydney Holton: Characterizing the Morphology and Connectivity of Geniculate Relay Cell Dendrites and Synaptic Inputs in P14 Mice
- ~4:15pm: Fozdar Symposium Award Presentations