Student Highlight: Congrats to Landhing!

Landhing Moran, a 6^th year student in the experimental psychology doctoral program, was awarded one of ten 2012-2013 dissertation fellowships that are given by USC’s College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), a huge accomplishment. The fellowship fully funds her stipend and provides a little extra to complete research for her dissertation… congrats Landhing! The fellowship is awarded annually: http://www.artsandsciences.sc.edu/handbook/sites/default/files/pdf/fellowship_diss_memo_8-21-12.pdf

I sat down with Landhing at Immaculate Consumption to have coffee/lunch and she told me a bit about her work and the paths she’s taken before and during graduate school to end up doing what she’s doing today. Before talking with her, the research world within the experimental program was largely a mystery to me. Well, really a complete mystery. Where are these animals being kept that must be used in the animal research?For that matter, where are the students and faculty working with them? [Answer: the basement of Barnwell is apparently home to a truly diverse array of life forms.]

Landhing studies the cognitive abilities of HIV-infected rats, including what they can they learn and remember, and whether phytoestrogens protect neurological cells against the harmful effects of the HIV virus. [From Wikipedia: phytoestrogens are plant-derived xenoestrogens functioning as the primary femalesex hormone not generated within the endocrine system but consumed by eating phytoestrogenic plants… so female sex-hormones derived from plants rather than endogenously.] Landhing’s particular interests lie in the cognitive piece of the puzzle, and her primary mentor is Dr. Charlie Mactutus.

To start more at her beginning, Landhing grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and told me that her first name is Chinese. Interesting fact: Landhing’s mother is also named “Landhing”, and Landhing’s father and brother also share the same first name. “This is particularly problematic at doctor appointments,” said Landhing with the matter-of-fact tone that you’d expect from a training scientist who spends her days controlling, observing, and quantifying. Landhing said she always liked science and enjoyed biology in high school. When she learned that her undergraduate alma mater, the College of Notre Dame in Maryland, had a biopsychology program, she majored in it and then began working for NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse). She interviewed people about drug use as part of a methadone treatment study; she ended up wanting to work with animals after accepting that human confounds could not be well-enough controlled to meet the needs of her substantive interests (e.g. humans can lie about drug use, lab animals can’t).

Landhing started the experimental psychology doctoral program at USC during the fall season of 2007; she has been building a strong foundation for her research ever since, which made her competitive in winning the CAS dissertation fellowship. So, what does she do day-to-day now that she has this great award and the increased how-you-choose-to-spend-your-graduate-time freedom that can come with it? Well, you might have guessed that she works really really hard and is therefore on track to finish her dissertation work in the spring of 2013, and will start applying for postdocs in the meantime . Down in the basement for her dissertation work, she has 24 operant chambers that she uses for experimentation with her sample of 84 rattusnorvegicus subjects. [If you recently took Learning and Motivation with Steven Harrod, this should be easier to visualize.] She’s on her feet a lot and does nearly all of the work herself, sometimes all day, 7 days a week for weeks on end. She sorts through the data and listens to music while she waits for the animals to learn and react, with Band of Horses being one of her staples over the last few months.In her free time she also likes to draw, particularly drawing people; the last thing she attempted was an anatomically accurate hand [Landhing let’s see it when you’re happy with it!]. She is also a fan of http://whatshouldwecallgradschool.tumblr.com/… sincerest thanks for adding this to my life.

In terms of the Dissertation Fellowship logistics, Landhing applied in April 2012 and was notified that she’d been chosen for the award in May 2012. This is an amazingly quick turnaround by any standards. Students within each department typically talk to their primary mentors and program director or department chair about their desire to apply. There is no limit on how many students can be nominated from a department or program, but nominations are ranked if there is more than one. Students basically apply to the department first, the department then ranks nominations, and those students’ applications are then forwarded to CAS. “It was less work than I thought it would be,” said Landhing. She said it was only a few pages that needed to be submitted. After winning the fellowship she quickly received a lump sum for the year to fund her stipend. In terms of getting the award, “it’s important that you show that you will be working on your dissertation during the period that you’re going to be awarded,” she said. Within the past year, she’s also gotten to travel to Honolulu and New Orleans for conferences. Those neuroscientists sure know how to pick em’.

Landhing is happy to talk to any students who are considering applying for the award- do not hesitate to contact her at moranl[at]email[dot]sc[dot]edu.

[Interview and article compiled by Sandra Coulon]