LAB NEWS

Josh successfully defended his dissertation titled "Epigenetic and neurodevelopmental consequences of early life experiences." Congrats, Dr. Danoff!

Emma's predissertation titled "A molecular mechanism of Oxtr gene regulation through a single CpG site" wont the department's Maury Pathfinder Award for best predissertation. Congrat,s Emma!

Amalia successfully defended her dissertation titled "An epigenetic mechanism for differential neural maturation and socio-emotional development in childhood". Congrats, Dr. Skyberg!

A team of faculty including Dr. Connelly, Dr. Laura Galloway, Dr. Butch Brodie, and Dr. Deborah Roach were awarded a 3 million dollar grant aimed at expanding graduate research opportunities aimed at understanding phenotypes. The grant allows for a new curriculum in graduate life sciences using multidisciplinary approaches to understanding how phenotypes develop and vary. The grant will also allow for a focus on career development and recruitment of graduate students. Read more here.

Katie's grant, titled “Nurturing the Epigenetic Architecture Underlying Social Development”, was selected for funding through the UVA Supporting Transformative Autism Research (STAR) Pilot Award program. Congrats, Katie!

Dr. Connelly, along with Dr. James Morris and Dr. Tobias Grossman, received UVA's inaugural research collaboration award for their work on the development of the brain and social behaviors in infancy. Read more here!

Katie's study on dynamics of OXTR DNA methylation dynamics in infancy was covered by UVA news and featured on UVA's homepage! Read more here. Congratulations, Katie!

Meghan Puglia successfully defended her dissertation titled "The noisy brain in infancy: A neurobiological marker of normative social development." Congratulations, Dr. Puglia!

Josh's picture of oxytocin and vasopressin immunoreactivity won the most votes in the "Neuroscience as Art" contest. Congratulations, Josh!

Kelly Wroblewski successfully defended her dissertation titled "Early life experiences alters epigenetic variation and gene expression of the oxytocin receptor gene." Congratulations, Dr. Wroblewski!

Katie Krol received the exceptionally prestigious Hartwell Postdoctoral Fellowship for her project titled Exploring plasticity of the oxytocin receptor in infancy and motherhood. UVA only endorses one fellow each year. Congratulations, Katie! Read more here.

Meghan's paper titled "Epigenetic regulation of the oxytocin receptor is associated with neural response during selective social attention" was published in Translational Psychiatry. Read more about it here. Congratulations, Meghan!

Sarah's fellowship to study the relationship between OXTR methylation and psychological outcomes in adolescence was renewed. Congratulations, Sarah!

Katie Lancaster successfully defended her thesis, titled "The Social Regulation of Emotion and Its Importance for Human Health". She will join the Kessler Foundation as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Traumatic Brain Injury Research. Congratulations, Dr. Lancaster!

Graduate student Marlen Gonzales accepted an assistant professorship at Cornell University. Congratulations, Marlen!

Meghan was featured in an article describing the interdisciplinary research projects within the UVA Brain Institute. Read more here: https://news.virginia.edu/content/brain-development-alzheimers-grad-fellows-take-wide-view

Amalia received a grant from the UVA Brain Institute to study the relationship between OXTR methylation and neural activation patterns of emotion processing and social cognition in children.