New College Student Natalie Paul Awarded Fellowship at Duke-UNC Brain Imaging and Analysis Center

New College of Florida 4th-year biological psychology student Natalie Paul has been awarded a post-baccalaureate fellowship in functional neuroimaging at the Duke-UNC Brain Imaging and Analysis Center. The fellowship is available to Paul for one or two years.

According to its website, the Duke-UNC Brain Imaging and Analysis Center (BIAC) was created in 1998 and brings together scientists from throughout Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to find interdisciplinary solutions to fundamental research questions about the human brain. Two key themes are closely weaved to achieve this goal. The first is to improve research techniques in neuroimaging, through improvements in MR pulse sequence design, applications to high-field fMRI, experimental control, and understanding of brain hemodynamics. Second, BIAC researchers investigate the functional properties of the human brain by incorporating these state-of-the-art research techniques into studies of cognitive processing.

During her fellowship, Paul will work under Dr. Lihong Wang, associate professor of psychiatry at the Duke-UNC Brain Imaging and Analysis Center, researching the neural correlates of geriatric depression and mild cognitive impairment. The fellowship allows Paul the ability to audit graduate-level courses in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methodology and provides her with ten hours in the fMRI scanner to conduct personal research. Paul will also receive career development training, including seminars on statistics, getting into graduate school, writing graduate school essays and presenting data.

While at New College, Paul has been studying biological psychology with Dr. Gordon Bauer as her advisor. This spring, she completed a thesis on the neural correlates of mindfulness titled, “This is Your Brain on Mindfulness: Mindfulness and Neural Activity in Attentional Networks.” She begins her fellowship at Duke-UNC Brain Imaging and Analysis Center on June 15.

For more information on the fellowship, visit: http://www.biac.duke.edu/fellowship/.

For more information contact Aimee Chouinard, Media Relations Coordinator, (941) 487-4152 or [email protected].