Lab News
Updates, breakthroughs, and behind-the-scenes moments from the team.
With the Spring 2026 semester coming to a close, the lab took a well-deserved break from the bench to celebrate everyone’s hard work and enjoy some beautiful Villanova sunshine. We traded our pipettes and data analysis for some fierce (but friendly!) games of cornhole out on Mendel Field.
Unfortunately, a few folks had to miss this due to busy Finals schedules, but rest assured, we ate some extra snacks in your honor!
Definitely a fantastic afternoon of relaxing, catching up outside the lab environment, and celebrating everything the team has accomplished this semester. A huge thank you to everyone for a great year of research. Here’s to a wonderful summer ahead!
We are thrilled to announce that our very own Corey McCall recently took home top honors at the Fifth Annual BIG EAST Undergraduate Research Poster Symposium, held on March 14th at Madison Square Garden.
The symposium is a highly competitive event that brings together outstanding undergraduate scholars from across the conference. This year featured 55 teams representing all 11 BIG EAST member institutions. Projects were rigorously evaluated by a panel of judges on visual quality, clarity of content, depth of results, and presentation style.
Corey earned First Place in Category 1: Social Sciences, Humanities, and Business. His winning presentation showcased his hard work and research on how alcohol consumption alters depression- and anxiety-like behaviors in mice.
Please join us in congratulating Corey on this well-deserved recognition!
You can read the full press release from the Big East Conference here.
We are incredibly proud to highlight three of our undergraduate researchers who presented their summer projects at the annual Villanova Undergraduate Research Symposium on November 21st.
This symposium, hosted by the Center for Research and Fellowships (CRF), offers a platform for students to share their findings with the broader university community. Our lab was well-represented with three diverse posters covering our core interests in stress, behavior, and neurobiology:
John Cwik presented his work on The Effects of Colitis on Stress Susceptibility and Hippocampal Neurogenesis, exploring the critical link between gut health and the brain’s response to stress.
Kojo Yankah shared his work on Nrf2 Activation by Dimethyl Fumarate as a Pharmacological Intervention to the Behavioral and Molecular Effects of Sub-Chronic Stress, investigating how this pathway influences behavioral and molecular responses to sub-chronic stress.
Corey McCall presented his poster, Discovering How Alcohol Consumption Alters Depression- and Anxiety-like Behaviors, exploring the relationship between substance use and mental health phenotypes.
It was a fantastic afternoon of science and discussion in the Connelly Center. Congratulations to all three for their successful presentations and research projects!
