Sophomore neuroscience major Shayna Williams has received one of 24 first-place awards for outstanding scientific research presentations at the 2006 Sigma Xi Student Research Conference in Detroit. Williams' interdisciplinary research project, Variations in Behavior and Gene Expression Among Individual Zebrafish (Danio rerio), examined the relationship between gene expression and anxiety-related behaviors in zebrafish.
Williams says she obtained four different strains of 100 zebrafisha tropical fish that belongs to the minnow familyand measured individual behavior data, which she then compared to the individual gene expression for each fish. "The most exciting data," according to Williams, "is that which shows relationships between gene expression and the behaviors. It is a stepping-stone experiment in the long process of understanding how DNA, which only codes proteins, could affect the way an organism acts."
Williams received a $175 cash prize and was recognized at an awards ceremony with a certificate and an invitation to join Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society. Nearly 200 undergraduate and graduate students, representing 100 institutions, participated in the student conference last November.
Williams says she plans to pursue a simultaneous M.D./Ph.D. degree and conduct medical research. In addition to her research activities, Williams tutors middle- and high school students, is a therapist and researcher at the Leon Strauss Autism Clinic, practices yoga, and is a member of CMC's Queer Resource Center.
Founded in 1886, Sigma Xi is the international honor society of research scientists and engineers. Membership is by invitation only, based on research achievements or potential. Sigma Xi has about 65,000 members and more than 500 chapters in North America and overseas. The nonprofit society publishes American Scientist magazine and sponsors a variety of programs that support science and engineering.
Samantha Stecker '08