UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCHERS
Many undergraduate students get involved with the program as researchers, work-study students, or volunteers. Here are some recent examples:
Heather Neave (2011 - present; co-op work term): Heather first joined the program as a co-op student from UVic. She is currently working on a project involving the assessment of emotional states in dairy calves when they are subjected to acute and chronic stress such as dehorning and social separation.
Vanessa Johnson (2011 - present; volunteer): Vanessa is helping students Devina Wong and Leigh Gaffney train zebrafish for their trials; she is also helping student Joanna Makowska with the care and husbandry of rats for her trials.
Leigh Gaffney (2011 - present; undergraduate thesis): Leigh is completing an undergraduate thesis on humane methods of euthanasia for zebrafish; specifically, she is using an approach-avoidance test to compare the effects of the chemical anaesthetics MS-222 and Clove Oil on zebrafish behaviour.
Geoff Nemeth (2011 - present; undergraduate thesis): Geoff is completing an undergraduate thesis on humane methods of euthanasia for laboratory rats; specifically, he is comparing rat aversion to the inhalant anaesthetics isoflurane and sevoflurane using an aversion-avoidance method.
Devina Wong (2010 - 2011; co-op work term & undergraduate thesis): Devina first joined the program as a co-op student. She worked on a project assessing humane euthanasia methods for laboratory rats; specifically, she came up with a novel method of assessing the degree of aversion to isoflurane and carbon dioxide. She is currently completing an undergraduate thesis in the same area.
Eliza Christie (2010 - 2011; volunteer): Eliza has been watching videos for graduate students Lori Vickers and Lindsey Collings, looking at dairy cow social feeding behaviour.
Sonja Dobbs (2010 - 2011; volunteer & work-study): Sonja's first involvement with the program was as a volunteer, where she assisted graduate student Joanna Makowska in a pilot study that investigated the causes of aversion to isoflurane in laboratory rats. She was later hired as a work-study student to help graduate student Jeff Spooner with interview transcriptions.
Carly Moody (2009 - 2011; work-study & undergraduate thesis): Carly first got involved with the program as a work-study student working in the area of laboratory mouse euthanasia. In addition to this ongoing work, she is currently completing her second undergraduate thesis on refining isoflurane and carbon dioxide euthanasia in laboratory rats.
Christina Tse (2009 - 2011; volunteer & undergraduate thesis): Christina joined us in 2009 to work with PhD student Kristen Walker and help assess wound-healing in hot-iron branded sea lions. Her work resulted in the creation of a wound-healing scale to use after burn procedures and was presented at two local research conferences. Her interest in marine mammals led her to continue working with the program in 2010-2011 on an Undergraduate Thesis project. Her current research is focused on assessing the effects of repeated anaesthesia in Steller sea lions.
Sarah Barret (2008 - 2011; work-study & regular hire): Sarah assisted several graduate students by helping watch and score hours of videos.
Julie Wittrock (2008 – 2010; undergraduate thesis): Julie used data collected from 2 trials to determine the effect of metritis, an infectious disease in the uterus, on the long-term milk production of dairy cows. Her work has resulted in a short communication in the Journal of Dairy Science.
Erin Ryan (2008 - 2009; undergraduate thesis): Erin ran an experiment to assess the effect of milk allowance on calf play behaviour. Her study culminated in an undergraduate thesis.
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