Principal Investigator
B.A. (Psychology) St. Mary’s College of Maryland
Ph.D. (Psychology) University of Maryland, College Park
Post-doc (Physiology) University of Wisconsin Medical School
Graduate Students
Kali Burke, Ph.D. student in the Cognitive Area of Psychology
B.A. Psychology (Daemen College)
Research Interests: I am interested in production and perception of ultrasonic vocalization in mice. I am also interested in the effects of mild traumatic brain injuries on the auditory system.
Email: kaliburk@buffalo.edu
Huaizhen Cai, Ph.D. student in the Cognitive Area of Psychology
B.S., M.E. Environmental Engineering (Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China)
Research Interests: I am interested in auditory scene analysis in birds. Specifically, I am interested in how the birds segregate interested sound source from a multi-sources sound scene.
Email: huaizhen@buffalo.edu
Anastasiya Kobrina, Ph.D. student in the Cognitive Area of Psychology
B.S. Psychology (University at Buffalo)
Research Interests: I am interested in production and perception of acoustic stimuli in mice and birds. Particularly, I am interested in the effects of aging on the perception of ultrasonic vocalizations in mice.
Email: akobrina@buffalo.edu
Laurel Screven, Ph.D. student in the Behavioral Neuroscience Area
B.S. Psychology (University at Buffalo)
Research Interests: I am interested in the production, perception, and significance of ultrasonic vocalizations in regards to communication in mice. More specifically, are mice using their vocalizations to communicate with each other?
Email: laurelsc@buffalo.edu
Senior Honors Students
Kristin Tymchak
Research interests: I am interested in examining how social experiences influence mouse USV production. In particular, I am interested in investigating if socially housed mice emit USVs to communicate with one another after being separated for various increments of time.
Undergraduates/Research Assistants
Ethan Gorman
Jack Kiesow
Brandon Sanzo
Kristin Tymchak
Anthony Villegas
Melisa Xiao
Former Lab Manager
Lisa Strand, MA in the Behavioral Neuroscience Program (Psychology)
B.A. Psychology (University at Buffalo)
Research Interests: I am interested in looking at the ultrasonic vocalizations emitted by rodents in different experimental paradigms and eventually would like to find out what the different calls “mean” to them.
Email: lmstrand@buffalo.edu
Former Senior Honors Students
Congratulations Nina and Nicole, you will be terribly missed!
Nina Baldy
Research Interests: I am curious about the role social experience plays in the way animals communicate with each other. Specifically, I would like to know whether socially raised mice can discriminate between vocalizations made by familiar and unfamiliar animals.
Nicole Hunter
Research Interests: I am interested in seeing whether mice prefer the ultrasonic vocalizations from a “friend”, or a “stranger”. I predict the mice will prefer to listen to calls emitted from “friends” in a preference task.