Isabelle Cullen

Experience

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  Oregon Health & Science University

  Oct 2016 - Aug 2017

  Volunteer Study Recruiter

  Volunteered as a recruiter for the Simons Foundation Powering Autism Research (SPARK) Project at OHSU. In my role, I contacted eligible individuals and their families about enrolling in the study in addition to handling sensitive health care information. I also corresponded with individuals currently enrolled to answer any questions they had and assist them through the registration process or returning materials. In addition, I also represented SPARK at public outreach events.

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  University of Oregon

  Sept 2017 - Jun 2018

  Research Assistant

  I was a research assistant/coder in Dr. Sanjay Srivastava's Personality and Social Dynamics Lab under the guidance of Bradley Hughes. In this study, two participants worked together to select 3 photos of 20 to "curate an art gallery together". My job was to behaviorally code videos of one study participant's behaviors based on characteristics of "the Big 5" (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) using a qualtrics form. On average, I coded 6-12 videos a week (30 minute videos, 3-6 hours a week). In addition, I participated in weekly coding meetings to discuss our rating decisions and refine our rating scale with our mentor. Show less

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  University of Oregon

  Sept 2018 - Jul 2022

  A student organization with the mission of being the one-stop-shop for peers on campus to be able to find advice, resources, and opportunities to become involved in research in any discipline. As Lead Coordinator, I oversee and collaborate with 3 executive members and 3 peer mentors to provide research/professional development workshops and events for classes, student organizations, and campus partnerships. In addition to our outreach, I am highly involved in the Core Working Group in planning the annual Undergraduate Research Symposium. In years past, I have participated in planning and being a panelist for the Summer Academy to Inspire Learning (SAIL) activities, which mentors and brings local Eugene high school to the University of Oregon to learn about college. Show less I am currently working on my undergraduate honors thesis for both the Robert D. Clark Honors College and Neuroscience major. My project is examining altered olfactomotor behaviors in both head-fixed and freely moving neurotypical and autism model mice (CNTNAP2-/-). Through this project, I built our experimental system that delivers 3 odorants to the mouse while also recording orofacial and olfactomotor movements using 2 RaspberryPi cameras. Final analysis will examine sniffing responses to odorants using MATLAB and olfactomotor movements will be analyzed using DeepLabCut and MoSeq Show less I worked under the guidance of Dr. Laura Lee McIntyre in the Department of Education and the Prevention Science Institute at the University of Oregon. As a Scan Buddy, I worked with autistic, developmentally disabled, and neurotypical children to guide them through a "mock scan" using our in-house, fake fMRI machine. I helped take children through the steps in a scan: laying on the platform, moving them into the machine, playing fMRI sounds, staying still, and placing the equipment on them such as the helmet and buzzer. I worked with children to make them feel comfortable in the scan (ex: putting a stuff animal through the mock scanner if they were scared) and acted as a familiar face while assisting a trained technician during their real scan in our fMRI machine. Show less As a Resident's Assistant, I was in-charge of mentoring and monitoring 60 students in a building of 120 residents. I organized weekly watercoloring nights for residents, created 120 door decorations each term, worked with a variety of staff members from UO Housing and my own team, was on-call 1-3 nights a week in addition to night rounds, provided resources to students (mental health, clubs, academic, and others), arranged one-on-one meetings once a term with all my residents, and participated in weekly Team meetings. Show less

  • Lead Coordinator for the Affiliated Students for Undergraduate Research and Engagement (ASURE)

    Jun 2020 - Jul 2022

  • Smear Lab, University of Oregon

    Jan 2019 - Jul 2022

  • Scan Buddy, Kids Brain Network Study

    Jun 2018 - Aug 2019

  • Resident Assistant

    Sept 2018 - Jun 2019
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  Gamma Phi Beta International Sorority

  Jan 2020 - Dec 2021

  As our chapter's Academic Chairwoman, my primary duties were to oversee our chapter's academic success and to support members in the academic pursuits. My duties included reviewing all chapter member's GPAs from the previous term, arranging academic meetings to provide academic, health, and other needed resources, construct academic plans for the following term using SMART goals, organizational skills, and check-ins, and worked with individual's regarding any academic barriers. In my time, I helped change our chapter's academic policies to make more equitable for members's individual situations and shifted how our chapter helps members who are struggling academically. Show less

  • Academic Chairwoman

    Jan 2021 - Dec 2021

  • Ritual Chairwoman

    Jan 2020 - Dec 2021
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  Emory University

  May 2020 - Jul 2020

  Undergraduate Research Assistant

  I was a virtual research assistant in Dr. Marie-Claude Perreault's lab through the Laney Graduate School Summer Opportunity for Academic Research program (LGS-SOAR). Through my summer, I lead a data verification project studying differences in the presence of motoneurons and sympathetic pre ganglion neurons in reticulospinal formation in lumbar spinal cord samples of wild-type and valproic acid mouse pups. I used ImageJ and Keyence to count these two cell types in L2-L5 of the spinal cord in several samples and analyzed the data using Excel. In addition, I presented my findings to peers in an internal symposium. Show less

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  NYU Langone Health

  Jul 2022 - Jul 2023

  Research Associate

  Working as a Research Associate for Dr. Shy Shoham in the Neural Interface Engineering Lab. Here, I am currently working to create a olfactory discrimination task to explore how neural perturbation affects behavioral performance and perception.

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  University of Pennsylvania

  Sept 2023 - Dec 2023

  Gottfried Lab, Rotating Graduate Student