The John W. Haycock Memorial Graduate Student Travel Award

Purpose and Criteria: This award was established to honor John W. Haycock, a former UCI graduate student. Dr. Haycock’s siblings established this endowed award, and many friends and colleagues have also contributed to it. The award will be presented to an outstanding graduate student in neuroscience to assist them in attending the annual Society for Neuroscience (SFN) conference. The student must prepare an abstract and plan on presenting their research at the SFN meeting. The purpose of the award is to defray the student’s registration and travel costs to the meeting.

Eligibility: Must be a graduate student who is in the laboratory of a CNLM Fellow on the UCI campus.

Awards available: 1 or more $1,000 awards

Requirements: CV/resume (max 2 pages), unofficial transcript, and a personal statement addressing research accomplishments, experience, and how the student will benefit from travel and presenting at SFN (500 words).

2025

Paula Assakura Miyazaki

(Advisor: Dr. Norbert Fortin)
"Teamwork makes the brain work: How hippocampal and prefrontal regions interact to temporally organize our memories"

Mia Brantley

(Advisor: Dr. Katherine Thompson-Peer)
"Dendrite repair: more than just the neuron's job"

Onwodi Ifejeokwu

(Advisor: Dr. Munjal Acharya)
"Mind Over Chemo: Preventing Brain Injury in Cancer Survivors"

Allison Morehouse

(Advisor: Dr. Sara Mednick)
"Sleep, Hormones, and Memory: The Often Overlooked Impact of the Menstrual Cycle"

2024

Bianca Leonard

(Advisor: Dr. Michael Yassa)
"Imagining a different story in psychiatry"

Gautam Narayan

(Advisor: Dr. Eitan Schechtman)
Making scents of memory reactivation

Roshae Roberts

(Advisor: Dr. Shahrdad Lotfipour)
"A moment on the lips and a lifetime on the brain: Understanding adolescent vulnerability to nicotine addiction"

Jacob Rounds

(Advisor: Dr. Marcelo Wood)
"Pumping the brakes on relapse"

Cherie Anne Stringer

(Advisor: Dr. Elizabeth Head)
Let's get ready to rumble! How astrocytes prepare to fight Alzheimer's disease in individuals with Down syndrome

2023

Mara Burns

(Advisor: Dr. Leslie Thompson)
"Star Light, Star Bright: How Huntington's disease breaks an astrocyte"

Jharrayne McKnight

(Advisor: Dr. Leslie Thompson)
"Dont Stress Out: Stress granules in Huntington's disease"

Laraka (Lara) Taniguchi

(Advisor: Dr. Tallie Z. Baram)
"To eat or not to eat Cocoa Pebbles: Sex differences in effects of early life adversity"

Kate Tsourmas

(Advisor: Dr. Kim Green)
"Replacing the brain's immune cells to treat disease"

Mariya Vodyanyk

(Advisor: Dr. Susanne Jaeggi)
"Seeing the world differently by learning to draw"

2022

Erica Ward

(Advisor: Dr. Elizabeth Chrastil)
"Detecting dynamic brain networks during navigation"

Malia Bautista

(Advisor: Dr. Christie Fowler)
"The missing lynx in nicotine relapse"

Gerardo Sandoval

(Advisor: Dr. Javier Diaz)
"You can't 'slot' with us: GluA1 ATD protein interactions mediating AMPA receptor trafficking"

Jaclyn Beck

(Advisor: Dr. Mathew Blurton-Jones)
"Why are T cells invading the brain in Alzheimer's disease?"

2021

Carlene Chinn

(Advisor: Dr. Marcelo Wood)
"How our true age can be defined by our epigenetic signature"

Andra Ionescu

(Advisor: Dr. Carl Cotman)
"How exercise changes gene expression"

Scott Kilianski

(Advisor: Dr. Bruce McNaughton)
"Does the hippocampus conduct a neural orchestra?"

2020

Taylor Nakayama

(Advisor: Dr. Sunil Gandhi)
"Turning back the clock on our brain's plasticity"

Forrest Weghorst

(Advisor: Dr. Karina Cramer)
"How the ear finds the brain"

2019

XiaoTing Zheng

XiaoTing research focuses on rewiring the brain using neuronal transplantation.

Kara Wendel

Kara's research focuses on understanding reward circuit modifications following early life adversity.

2018

Caitlin Suire

Caitlin researches Alzheimer's Disease.

Mitchell Farrell

Mitchell's research focuses on understanding the brain mechanisms of risky decision making.

2017

Maria Montchal, PhD

While at UCI, Maria was interested in understanding how brain regions work together to support memory for complex, dynamic events.