Students as Scholars Highlight!

OSCAR Student Thalia Dimopoulos Researches The effects of A. bisporus on the Circadian Rhythms and Spatial Memory of hAPP Transgenic Mice! 

“OSCAR changed what I wanted to do with my life,” says first year CBN Master’s student Thalia Dimopoulous.

Thalia was an undergraduate studying Neuroscience at George Mason University who started her Master’s Degree this Fall. While an Undergraduate, she took part in the OSCAR program, which allowed her opportunities to hone her research skills, allowing her to speak at conferences and get a start on the research that she is continuing through her graduate program.

This is a shift for Dimopoulous, who originally wanted to go into medical school, but the work she did with OSCAR made her realize that she enjoyed research a lot more. Something she carries with her today. Her study involves the effects of white button mushrooms on the memory, circadian rhythms, and nesting behavior have on mice in order to study their effects on Alzheimer’s Disease. She admits this is a niche subject, but working with OSCAR allowed her to narrow down what she was studying.

Next month, she will be presenting at the Conference Society for Neuroscience in San Diego, and attributes OSCAR to helping hone her research skills. “Anyone who wants to research, get into OSCAR and see how they can help you,” she says, noting that OSCAR helped open the doors for these presentations and working with researchers.

She hopes to publish a paper based on her current project.

While she originally wanted to try the Accelerated Master’s Program, she feels that finishing the Undergraduate Program then the Master’s Program helped her “feel the divide” between her undergraduate and graduate classes.

As for the future, Dimopoulous would like to go get her PHD. She would also like to work with the fMRI machine and learn to use that.

To read more about her undergrad OSCAR research the prompted her to where she is today, visit the link here!