Lab NewsFollow Dr. Freeman and other lab members on twitter (all views are their own).
For lab news (in reverse chronological order) about publications, awards, media coverage, etc, keep scrolling below. We love to celebrate the achievements of all our lab members, especially undergraduate students! Utah State University has the second oldest undergraduate research program in the country (behind MIT) and is an ideal environment to conduct research that involves undergraduate students. USU offers several opportunities annually for undergraduate researchers to present their work, and there are several avenues for undergrad students to apply for funded fellowships and research scholarships, too. |
February 2023: Our very own undergraduate researcher Rachel Tong has been recognized with the Legacy of Utah State award for the College of Science! This is a huge honor, as the award is meant to "recognize and emphasize a student who represents the heart and soul of the university. Students should show a commitment to the institution and their program of study, as well as demonstrate internal involvement and service, department dedication, perseverance during times of adversity, and contribution behind the scenes." This description embodies Rachel to a T. She will find out at the upcoming Robbins Awards if she also wins at the university level, but what an honor already!
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January 2023: What a thrill to have been invited to represent excellence in health and well-being research at USU as one of the speakers for this year's Blue Plate Research seminar series. As their website states, "Blue Plate Research is an event series from Utah State University that is focused on sharing easy-to-understand well-being research with Utah health advocates, statewide stakeholders, and the public." It was an honor to be introduced by President Noelle Cockett and to speak about my work to community members from across the Wasatch Front. A recording of my presentation and the Q&A should be available soon!
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January 2023: Postdoc Lexi Turano has published the first coyote paper from the Freeman Lab (available open access) in Behavioral Processes, in which we sought to determine whether a modified partner preference test would capture partner preference behavior in pair-bonded coyotes. A very long story short: it sort of does. The individual variation across animals was higher than I've ever seen, so while some of the means look pretty clearly like they prefer to be near their mate, the statistics were a beast. Nonetheless, this is a HUGE first step in establishing methods to study social behavior in this unique captive population of coyotes. Congrats to Lexi!
December 2022: Well, we did it! We finished the first semester for our brand new Neurophysiology Laboratory course. It took almost two years from first conceptualizing it to enrolling the first (seven!) students, but we did it. I would have never been able to do this without the dedication and Herculean efforts by my graduate teaching assistant, Megan Raddatz. Check out this article about our course to learn more.
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November 2022: Just a short bit of news to celebrate a great conference! This year, PhD student Ariel Snowden, undergraduate student Gentry Mower, and I traveled to San Diego to attend the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and present Ariel's work studying oxytocin receptors in brains from donors with schizophrenia and matched, unaffected control donors. Ariel was awarded a Trainee Professional Development Award to support her travel to the conference. We were also interviewed by the folks at the Allen Brain Institute for a follow-up feature after the Data Stories webisode they made about me five years ago in 2017. Looking forward to seeing the final product, but it'll be a little while before it's published.
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August 2022: Previous Masters student, Sage Frehner ('21), has published her first first-author paper, which represents one large portion of her Master Thesis work from her two years in the Freeman Lab. In this open access paper, she describes the results of her work using in situ hybridization to quantify oxytocin receptor mRNA and tyrosine hydroxylate mRNA in the dopaminergic pars compacta of the human substantia nigra across male and female donors who had autism and male and female matched unaffected controls. This paper also includes the results of undergraduate student Kip Dooley ('21)'s Honors Capstone thesis, in which he measured oxytocin receptor binding in these same specimens using receptor autoradiography. Check out the paper--females with autism have lower levels of mature, cell-surface oxytocin receptors in the substantia nigra compared to unaffected females, unaffected males, and males with autism, but this is not being driven by differences in gene expression or underlying differences in the dopaminergic neurons of this part of the brain. Very interesting!
July 2022: After being a student of animal behavior for so many years, it was an absolute honor to be invited to be the guest for the season finale of Temple Grandin's new podcast, How'd You Think of That? I remember when I asked for her book, Animals in Translation, for Christmas when I was an undergraduate student in 2005 and opened it so excitedly, explaining her theories on autism and animal behavior to my entire family. I remember when Temple came to speak at Emory University several years later when I was working on my PhD in Neuroscience to study the mechanisms driving animal behavior. So, to be asked to be a guest on her podcast now, as a faculty member, is like a dream. It was a pleasure speaking with her and sharing our ideas on research, the brain, and the importance of STEM education.
May 2022: Previous Masters student, Noa Reuveni ('21), has published the work from her thesis in the Freeman Lab, and this represents her first first-author paper as well as my first senior-author paper! Her paper is available open access, thanks to the Open Access Funding Initiative Award from USU Libraries. Her research found that exogenously administered cannabinoids seem to promote resilience to stress in mice. It was a pleasure to work with Noa on this project and to collaborate with our colleagues in the Psychology Department as well.
May 2022: Wow lots of BIG news to celebrate for a couple of our undergraduate researchers in the Freeman Lab! Rachel Tong won the Excellence in Research Award from the Biology Department for her research proposal to study the effect of partner loss on the stress system of the coyote brain; she has also been awarded one of the very competitive College of Science MiniGrants to help fund this project. Congrats Rachel! And undergraduate student Ethan Dayley has been awarded an Undergraduate Research and Creative Opportunities (URCO) Grant to support his research project to measure oxytocin receptor mRNA in specimens from donors with and without autism. Congrats Ethan!!
April 2022: Undergraduate student researcher Ethan Dayley won Best Oral Presentation by an Undergraduate in the Life Sciences at this year's annual Student Research Symposium. In his presentation, he described his work analyzing whether single nucleotide polymorphisms in the oxytocin receptor gene were associated with the levels of oxytocin receptor binding in the brains of donors with and without autism.
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April 2022: Undergraduate researcher Matt Webb presents the results of his URCO-funded research project on the comparative genetics of the canid oxytocin receptor at the 2022 National Conference on Undergraduate Research.
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March 2022: Freeman Lab PhD student Caroline Long is the recipient of a $5,000 research award from the Ecology Center to support her research on the sensory ecology of olfactory social communication in coyotes. This award will allow us to chemically analyze urine samples to measure volatile compounds involved in scent detection and communication.
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February 2022: After enjoying many Science Unwrapped presentations from the audience, I served as this month's invited speaker! As described on their website, Science Unwrapped is "the College of Science’s public science outreach program. During the school year, Science Unwrapped hosts monthly gatherings featuring a science lecture, following by hands-on learning activities and refreshments. Inquiring minds of all ages are invited to learn about the wonders, the joys, the mishaps, the fun, the unexpected detours and the excitement of scientific discovery." Check out this article promoting my presentation and click here or on the promotional flyer to watch a 1-hr recording of my lecture and the excellent Q&A from the audience. I love an engaged audience!
January 2022: I am speechless. I have just been named the 2022 Peak Undergraduate Research Mentor of the Year for the College of Science!! This award recognizes outstanding faculty mentorship of undergraduate research across the departments of Biology, Chemistry & Biochemistry, Physics, Mathematics & Statistics, and Computer Science. According to the Dean’s office, I am the most junior faculty member to receive this award in its nearly 20-year history. This is such an honor, as I am deeply committed to the active mentorship of undergraduates in research and have served as the mentor for 18 undergraduate students at USU in my first three years here, with five more starting this coming Fall. Thank you to everyone who nominated me and especially to my wonderful students.
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January 2022: Very happy to have received one of the Open Access Funding Initiative Awards from USU Libraries to help pay to make my students' publications available open access to all without a paywall.
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December 2021: Freeman Lab Masters student Sage Frehner has successfully defended her thesis! Sage established in situ hybridization in our lab by optimizing existing protocols for human brain tissues and then mapped and quantified the expression (and co-localization) of oxytocin receptor mRNA and vasopressin 1a receptor mRNA in 25 candidate brain regions throughout the neurotypical human brain. She also used this technique to determine whether there were underlying differences in oxytocin receptor expression in the dopaminergic pars compacta of the substantia nigra from male and female donors with and without autism. Results from both projects are being written up for publication now!
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December 2021: More Freeman Lab research in the media! Kristen Munson of Utah State Magazine wrote up a really fabulous article called "A Consummate Pest", about our research on the biology of coyote social bonds, with a special showcase on URCO-grant winner Matthew Webb, an undergraduate student pioneering some comparative genetics work in our lab. Go check it out!
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November 2021: Our undergraduate researcher Blake Nielson has just been awarded an Undergraduate Research and Creative Opportunities (URCO) Grant from the Office of Research!! This $1000 award will support his independent research evaluating the effect of partner loss on oxytocin receptors in the female coyote brain, using tissue opportunistically collected from females whose pair-mates died ("widowed" females) compared to females who died before or at the same time as their pair-mates (due to natural causes or veterinary decisions). This research will build up on a growing field of published work using monogamous animals to investigate the grieving brain.
September 2021: I am so excited to share that my very first solo-authored paper is now published!! "Using Receptor Autoradiography to Visualize and Quantify Oxytocin and Vasopressin 1a Receptors in the Human and Nonhuman Primate Brain." I was invited to contribute this methods paper as part of a peer-reviewed book about techniques to study the oxytocin system, and it was quite an honor to have been recognized by the Australian editorial team as the expert in localizing oxytocin and vasopressin receptors in primate brain tissue. This publication represents YEARS of gleaned wisdom from extensive high-throughput receptor autoradiography assays in brain tissue sections from a variety of species. As I explain the introduction to the paper: "I ran my first autoradiography assay 13 years ago [in 2008], and over just the last 7 years [~2013-2019], I have processed ~22,000 slides through this procedure. I have processed brain tissue from 20 diverse species (6 rodents, 3 birds, 7 prosimians, 3 monkeys, coyotes and humans, both neurotypical and from clinical populations)." And I am adding to this list in my new lab every year!
August 2021: After only two years in my tenure-track faculty position and lots of involved and documented work through the ETE10 Program to improve my teaching practice, I have earned the Teaching Scholar Certificate from USU's Office of Empowering Teaching Excellence! This is the first of two culminating certificates offered by this program: Master Teaching Certificate is next!
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July 2021: Freeman Lab undergraduate researcher Rachel Tong has been awarded one of this year's highly competitive Undergraduate Research Fellowships! This fellowship supports early involvement in research for freshman (rising sophomores) and provides $1,000/year for 3 years. Wonderful news and huge congratulations, Rachel!
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June 2021: More great news! I have been selected as one of 35 recipients nationally for the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award, from Oak Ridge Associated Universities. This one-year $10,000 award will help me to establish the new direction of my research program to pivot to studying monogamous canids from a career of working with monogamous rodents and primates.
May 2021: I am one of only 4 recipients nationally to win a two-year Equipment Loan Award from the Faculty in Undergraduate Neuroscience! This award will make my new neurophysiology lab class possible by providing essential neural recording equipment from ADInstruments. I'm beyond thrilled for this award and for the enhancement it will provide to the undergraduate neuroscience training environment at USU!
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May 2021: After completing a rigorous, 6-month long online course, I am so proud to announce that I have earned a nationally recognized Certificate in Effective Instruction from the Association of College and University Educators. This certificate signifies my completion of a 25-module course in effective teaching practices which required the implementation of evidence-based instructional approaches throughout last fall semester. The credential is co-issued by the American Council on Education and distinguishes faculty for their commitment to educational excellence and student success. Many thanks to USU's Office of Empowering Teaching Excellence (especially Shelley Arnold and Travis Thurson) for their support of this program.
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May 2021: Freeman Lab Masters student Noa Reuveni successfully defended her Masters thesis! In only one year, Noa designed and completed a meta-analysis of all of the existing, peer-reviewed literature to evaluate the effects of cannabinoids on stress-coping behavior and neural outcomes in rodent models of depression. Her work will soon be submitted for publication. She is heading off to start the postbacc IRTA program at the NIH to further train in neuroscience research on cannabinoids.
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April 2021: Undergraduate researcher Trevor Anderson presented his work characterizing oxytocin receptor binding in the coyote forebrain and evaluating any sex differences at the annual National Conference on Undergraduate Research (virtual). Congrats Trevor!
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April 2021: Undergraduate researcher and Honors student Kip Dooley wins Best Poster by an Undergraduate in the Life Sciences at the annual Student Research Symposium, where he showcased his Capstone project research, which found that oxytocin receptors in the substantia nigra of the human brain were lower in female donors who had autism compared to their unaffected female counterparts as well as to unaffected males and males with autism.
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March 2021: With lots of support and a variety of sponsors, I organized and executed a virtual film screening and panel discussion of the film Picture A Scientist. It was well attended and helped open our eyes to the injustices experienced by many women scientists in academia. Check out this article promoting the event for more information.
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March 2021: Also in March, with support from the new Center for Intersectional Gender Studies and Research, I organized and hosted another virtual film screening and panel discussion, this time for the film Intersexion. This film provides a window into the lived experiences of people who don’t fit the binary model of a male and female world. Read this article about the event for more.
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March 2021: Undergraduate researcher Matthew Webb is our first Freeman Lab undergrad to win an Undergraduate Research and Creative Opportunities (URCO) Award to support his research comparing the sequence of the coyote oxytocin and vasopressin 1a receptor genes with that of the domestic dog. Congratulations, Matt!
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March 2021: After one revision and a year since my initial submission, I am so proud to have received a $20,000 Seed Grant from the Office of Research at USU!! These funds will support one year of pilot studies to help me launch my research program on the neuroendocrinological basis of social bonding in coyotes!
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February 2021: I was interviewed on Utah Public Radio twice this month(!) for the hour-long show, Access Utah hosted by Tom Williams. On his February 11th episode, we discussed my Love and Loss During a Pandemic article. On the February 25th show, I was joined by USU Asst Professor Sojung Lim and filmmaker Sharon Shattuck to discuss the film Picture A Scientist and to promote the upcoming film screening and panel discussion that I am organizing. Check it out!
February 2021: Publication finally out (and available open access) from a collaboration that began in Dec 2017 with postdoc Dr. Nick Grebe in Dr. Christine Drea's lab at Duke University. We characterized and compared oxytocin and vasopressin 1a receptor densities across 7 species of lemurs that differed in mating system (monogamous vs non-monogamous). The results may surprise you! Nice to see some media coverage about our study.
February 2021: My poster submission to the annual meeting of the Society for Social Neuroscience won Best Poster and was invited as a contributed talk instead! It was a thrill to be able to give the first public presentation about our research on partner preference in monogamous pairs of adult coyotes, as well as progress toward mapping oxytocin and vasopressin 1a receptors in their brains.
January 2021: I contributed two back-to-back segments of The Academic Minute podcast about my research. Go check them out! They're each 2 minutes long; the first part (aired on Jan 21) is about my research mapping oxytocin receptors in the brain. The second part (aired Jan 22) is about my research on autism!
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Winter 2020: I authored an article for the winter issue of Utah State Today entitled, Love and Loss During a Pandemic, which discusses the emotional impact of losing my mother to cancer during the peak of the pandemic, as well as other impacts on our brain and mental health of extended social isolation due to COVID-19.
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December 2020: Undergraduate student Trevor Anderson wins the Excellence in Research Award (for the second time!) at the Biology Undergraduate Student Research symposium.
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September 2020: Freeman Lab Masters student Sage Frehner wins Best Presentation by a Graduate Student at the annual Hansen Life Sciences Retreat.
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August 2020: I would like to welcome Dr. Lexi Turano to our lab as our first postdoc! She arrives with PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience from the University of Delaware and will be working on establishing methods to quantify coyote pair-bond related behavior.
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August 2020: I am so honored to have been selected for a Scholar Award from the Office of Empowering Teaching Excellence to support the development of a new undergraduate Neurophysiology Laboratory course. These awards provide funding (up to $4000) to a cohort of USU instructors (5-7 individuals) to engage in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). This one-year program also provides professional development and resources associated with a SoTL project and support in the development, implementation, and dissemination process.
May 2020: Undergraduate researcher Maddie Measom is the first Freeman lab student to be awarded a College of Science MiniGrant, which provides $1,000 to support her research on the vasopressin 1a receptor distribution in the coyote brain! She was one of eleven awardees across all departments in the College of Science. Check out this article about the awards for more information.
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April 2020: Undergraduate researchers Trevor Anderson and Nate Johnson win the Biology Department's Excellence in research Award for their poster "Exploring canid monogamy: Characterization of the distribution of oxytocin receptors in the brain of the coyote (Canis latrans)".
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December 2019: I just returned from the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, and it was a really wonderful conference in particular for two reasons. First, I believe I just met the person who will become my first postdoc! And second, I found out in person that I have been selected by the generous folks at the Good Nature Institute to receive their Early Career Excellence Award to support my pre-tenure research on animal models of human psychiatric disorders! They will be sending $20,000/year for the next three years!! WOW!! Feeling so grateful.