Our Spring 2023 Alward Lab photo!
Top, left to right: Sarah Gawlik, Maxximus Ramsaroop, Mariana Lopez, Lillian Jackson, Melanie Dussenne, Sarina Momin.
Bottom, left to right: Megan Howard, Jacqueline Bahrami, Andrew Hoadley, Beau Alward, Kat Munley, Amy Hoang.
Not present: Mariam Dumitrascu,
Beau Alward, PhD
Principal Investigator of the Neuroendocrinology and Behavior Lab
Beau went to American River Community College before transferring to UC Davis, where he earned his BS in Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior. He got his PhD from Johns Hopkins University and was an Arnold O. Beckman Fellow at Stanford University. He was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Houston from 2019-2024. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology at UCLA. He is interested in how our brains process social information and generate appropriate physiological and behavioral responses.
Lillian Jackson, BS
PhD Student, DCBN Program
Lillian received her BS in Neuroscience at the University of Texas at Austin. She is interested in the role that social context plays in altering the neural mechanisms of behavior. Additionally, she is interested in finding distinctions between reproductive and aggressive behaviors that are performed by both sexes. She is a PhD student in DCBN Program.
Mariana Lopez, BS
PhD Student, DCBN Program
Currently Mariana’s interests include investigating aggression in A.burtoni males deficient of functional androgen receptor (AR) genes and how the neural mechanisms associated with aggression differ from the norm. She is a PhD student in DCBN Program.
Kat Munley, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Kat received her BS in Marine Biology and her BA in Creative Writing from the University of Miami, and she recently received her PhD in Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior from Indiana University. Broadly, she is interested in how an organism’s external environment influences its internal state, including neuroendocrine substrates and social behavior. As a postdoctoral fellow in the Alward Lab, she will be investigating how steroid hormones regulate aggressive and reproductive behaviors across different social contexts.
Melanie Dussenne, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Lauren Saenz, BS
Lab Technician
Lauren earned a BS in Psychology with a minor in Anthropology from the University of Houston. She is interested in the mechanisms of social behavior and her attention is toward learning how neural, molecular, and behavioral elements are interconnected. She is working at the Alward Lab as a Research Technician to broaden her understanding of social behavior and neuroscience before beginning a graduate program.
Undergraduate and High School Research Assistants
Jacqueline Bahrami (2021-Present) (2022 PURS Awardee)
Jacqueline received her BS in exercise science with a focus in health professions. Her current research investigates the sex differences between male and female A. burtoni in regards to cellular proliferation and radial glial cells.
Mariam Diramatscu (2021-Present)
Sarina Momin (2022-Present)
Amy Hoang (2022-Present)
Lab Alumni
Sarah Gawlik
Mariam Dumitrascu (Now: Medical Student at Baylor College of Medicine)
Andrew Hoadley (Now: University of Chicago, Animal Care Operations Specialist)
Megan Howard (Now: Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Master’s program at Gothe University in Frankfurt
Maxximus Ramsaroop (Now: UT Austin Ecology and Evolutionary Biology PhD program)
Villa Matovu (Now: Mindfulness, Well-Being, and Spirituality Lab at the University of Houston)
Mark Mathews (Now: Medical Student at University of Houston College of Medicine)
Megan Lean (Now: Medical Student at UT Southwestern Medical School)
Kamille Hernandez (Now: Undergraduate at University of Pennsylvania)
Sara Loetzerich (Now: UH Biology and Biochemistry Graduate Program)
Richanda Berry (Now: UT San Antonio Clinical and Mental Health Counseling Masters Program)
Uchenna Inoma (Now: Lonza Bioscience)
Humayd Mirza (Now: Kosten Addiction Lab at UH)
Rohail Siddiqi (Now: Kosten Addiction Lab at UH)