Elizabeth Glater
Hahn Grant Awardee: Professor Elizabeth Glater’s research examines how genes and environment modify the nervous system to produce different behaviors. Using the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism, she investigates the genetic and neuronal mechanisms underlying food preference, decision-making, and behavioral variation. As an Associate Professor of Neuroscience at Pomona College, she works closely with undergraduate researchers to understand better how neural circuits shape interactions between organisms and their environments.
Project Title: Preparation of “Quantitative Analysis of Worm Behavior Module” for Open Access by Pomona Students
Project Goal: This project will expand access to a successful computational neuroscience lab module developed for Pomona’s Neur168 Genes and Behavior course. In the module, students study how neural activity influences behavior by recording high-resolution videos of freely moving C. elegans and analyzing worm movement with MultiWormTracker, a publicly available software program that runs in MATLAB. Through this process, students learn to collect, analyze, and interpret quantitative behavioral data while building confidence with computational methods.
The next phase will prepare the module for broader use by neuroscience educators and students. Pomona students will create videos of worm movement, accompanying quantitative datasets of worm movement, and supporting documentation for an Open Access site, allowing others to practice computational and quantitative data analysis skills without specialized equipment for recording videos of worms. Students will also help communicate the project to a wider audience, gaining experience in scientific writing and outreach. The project will culminate in an article for the Journal for Undergraduate Neuroscience Education and a freely available teaching resource that supports hands-on, computational learning in neuroscience.