Tara Whitten
Neuroscience MSc candidate |
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Before entering the Brain Rhythms Lab in 2006, the most important rhythms in Tara’s life were those of her heart and lungs, as a former National Team cross country skier and a cross country runner with the UofA Pandas. She had always been fascinated by the brain though, and had aspired to a career in neuroscience ever since reading Steven Pinker’s book “How the Mind Works” in high school. Tara initially joined the Brain Rhythms Lab as an undergraduate looking for summer research experience, but soon became entranced by the oscillatory behaviour of the brain and is now beginning her graduate training under Clayton’s supervision. In fact, Tara has a theory Clayton uses the oscilloscope to hypnotize his students while quietly ‘suggesting’ that they remain in the lab. It might explain a lot.
Though born in Toronto, Tara has spent most of her life in Edmonton and completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Alberta with a major in Biological Sciences and a minor in Psychology. In the middle of her degree she spent four years living in Canmore, Alberta while training full-time for cross country skiing. Tara won a silver medal at the 2003 Under-23 World Championships, and also competed for Canada in the 2005 Senior World Championships. Though returning to the UofA to continue her studies, Tara continues to train and compete in skiing as well as in her new sport, track cycling.
Tara’s undergraduate project explored the influences of body temperature on spontaneous brain rhythms, while her graduate research is aimed at understanding the coordination of gamma oscillations in the hippocampus during different states of brain activity. Tara is grateful for her NSERC undergraduate student research award that got her started in neuroscience, as well as her NSERC postgraduate scholarship and Alberta Ingenuity scholarship that are supporting her graduate studies. She is also grateful to Clayton for his patience as a teacher and his passion for neuroscience. However, she is still partially convince she may have been hypnotized. |
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