Home > Current Lab Personnel > Undergraduate Students

Undergraduate Students

Ana Montanez (2005- )

Email Divya Chandrasekar (2004 + )

Elizabeth Jovanovich (2005- )

Email Jason Luo (2004 + )

Email Laura Modilevsky(2004 + )

Email Stephanie (Fall 2004 + )

Being a transfer student from out of state isn't easy. URAP helped me get into the Wildsoet lab at the last minute. I was surprised to know she came from Australia too and our lab is full of multicultural people. At first I was intimidated because I'm not an optometry major, but the staff and students are so friendly and in fact most of them are not optometry major either. I'm helping on the chick project while Yibin is busy with his poster. Priya introduced me too to her diffraction project with the chicks and Kaandy who is doing her honor thesis. Vivian who's always there every morning to help. Hopefully this semester will be a great introduction to a lab experience with the best PI who's really cool.

Email Gabrielle Wong (2004 - 2005)

[Email] Huanxian (Kandy) Guan (Fall 2002 - 2005)

Email Supriya Bhat (2004 - 2005)

[Email] Simon Dardashti (Fall 2002 - 2005)

I am an undergraduate enrolled in a double major in Molecular and Cell Biology and Political Science. I intended to pursue either a career in research or medicine. Through the URAP Program, I have been undertaking research in the Wildsoet lab. The project that I am currently working on attempts to better understand the way in which very poor vision in children affects their ocular development. I am using chicks raised in ultra-violet light as my model; because the chick eye has only small number of UV-sensitive photoreceptors, their vision is relatively poor under these conditions.

The results from this project may help us understand why people born with reduced numbers of photoreceptors, such as rod- and blue cone-monochromats, tend to have high refractive errors. My summer research is being supported by a Fight for Sight Fellowship.

Email Alice Liao (2004)

Email Brenda Yeh (Fall 2003 - 2004)

I am a 4th year Molecular Cell Biology major with emphasis in Cell and Developmental Biology. I will be graduating in December 2004, with intentions of attending optometry school. I have been involved in the Wildsoet lab since Fall of 2003 under the Undergraduate Research
Apprenticeship Program.

For most of my time in the lab, I've been working on a project in collaboration with Jodi Rymer, studying the ultrastructure of chick retinal pigment epithelium. Through transmission electron microscopy, it is clear that albino chicks lack the melanin pigment granules that
are essential in regulating ion content and transport. Therefore, we hypothesize that a deficiency in ion content and/or transport is causing problems in eye growth regulation which leads to the high refractive errors seen in albinism.

[Email] Cindy Hwang (Fall 2002 -2004)

I am a 4th year Molecular and Cell Biology major with an emphasis in Cell and Developmental Biology. I have been working in the Wildsoet lab through the Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program.

I am working on two different projects, one examining the role of the isthmo-optic nucleus in eye growth regulation in chicks (collaborator: Howard Ellenberger) and the other comparing the refractive error measurements made using the Wavefront Science abberrometer with the Shippon-Nippon refractometer (collaborator: Young Kim). My future goal is to work in healthcare.

Click here to see Cindy's abstract and poster from her undergraduate research

Email Eileen Ng (2004)

[Email] Gloria Chiu (Fall 2002 - 2004)

I am an undergraduate, studying molecular and cell biology as major, with a cell and developmental biology emphasis. I plan to enroll in the MCB Honors Program. I am also studying music as a minor.

I have been working in the lab since the Fall of 2002 under the URAP program and successfully competed for a URAP Summer Research fellowship that is funding my research of the summer (2003). I will be investigating the role of nystagmus in the refractive astigmatism commonly exhibited by people with congental nystagmus.

Over the last two semesters, I was involved in two different collaborative projects. With fellow students, Adelyn Tsu, Mary Limbo & Kandy Guan, we have examined the effects of short term wear of positive lenses on various ocular parameters. Along with Adelyn Tsu, we analyzed vision screening data collected from over 200 athletes at Cal.

Our main goal was to find out if there was a correlation between human height and ocular axial length. We investigated the relationships between other ocular parameters including refractive error, corneal curvature, axial length, and retinal abnormalities.

In terms of career aspirations, I plan to enroll in an OD program, my top choices being either Berkeley’s School of Optometry or the SUNY State College of Optometry. After obtaining my OD, I would like to open an optometry office and work to provide vision care in Orange County. After paying off my debts and establishing a steady business, I would like to open an elegant dessert diner. Can I also say that I’d like to find a cure for myopia?

Click here to see Gloria's abstract and poster from her undergraduate research

[Email] Grace Kin Ling Wong (Summer 2003 - 2004)

I am a 4th year pre-Optometry undergraduate enrolled in a Molecular and Cell Biology major, with an cell and developmental biology emphasis. I have just joined the Wildsoet lab as a volunteer for the summer.

Email Jeannie Hernandez (Fall 2004)

I'm a senior IB major. I started working in this lab in the Fall of 2004.
Professor Wildsoet and I will be investigating the anti-myopic function of
antimuscarinic drugs like atropine. Studies show that when one eyeball of a
baby chick is injected with an antimuscarinic drug, the effect is stimulated
in both eyes. Our investigation involves severing the optic nerve of the
injected eye to see if there is still an effect on the non-injected eye; an
effect seen only in the injected eye would suggest that there is some sort
of signaling in the brain that tells the other eye to respond to atropine
(or the antimuscarinic agent) by reversing the myopia. An effect in both
eyes suggests that there is something else going on, and we could pursue the
investigation further.
Fun!

Email] Jenny Banh BSc (Fall 2002 - 2004)

I recently graduated with a B.S. degree in Bioengineering with an emphasis in Tissue Engineering and Biomechanics.

Since joining the Wildsoet lab, I have been working on a neuroprotection project with Vivian Choh for the past few months. We are investigating the ability of salicylic acid and/or CNTF to protect retinal ganglion cells after axiotomy. We are also interested in the effect of ganglion cell preservation of eye growth. I have continued to work on this project since graduating.

My career aspiration is to eventually pursue a higher degree in a field ideally related to both Bioengineering and Optometry.

 

[Email] Josephine Ni (Fall 2002 - 2004)

I am an undergraduate enrolled in a double major in Molecular Cell Biology and Business Administration. My career aspirations are to become an ophthalmologist and eventually to become involved in hospital management. I joined the Wildsoet lab in 2002 under the Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program when I undertook a project investigating the sensitivity of the choroidal focusing mechanisms in the chick to defocus. I have also been involved in developing a protocol for measuring corneal curvature in the chick.

[Email] Kevin Kuo (Fall 2001 - 2004)

I will be a senior in the Fall, studying molecular and cell biology as a major. In my two years with the lab so far, I have worked on three different projects involving 1) ocular growth responses to regional stimulation of the chick retina, 2) effects of abnormal ocular growth on higher order optical aberrations, and 3) the effects of colchicine on compensatory lens responses. The latter project is on-going and will be the subject of my senior honors thesis. All three projects made use of the chick as an animal model.

I have received grants from the Biology Fellows Program and a URAP summer fellowship. I helped my senior collaborator, Nina Tran, present her poster at the MCB honors posters session in 2002. This year, I had opportunity to present some of my work as a poster for the 4th International Wavefront Congress in San Francisco; my poster shared first prize for best presented poster.

After graduating, I hope to go on to medical school and eventually pursue a career in medicine. My experiences in the Wildsoet lab have also led me to consider part-time research as a possibility for the future.

Click here to see Kevin's abstract and poster from his undergraduate research

Email Paul Li (2004)

Email Sho Shimamoto (Fall 2003 - 2004)

I am a third year undergraduate student majoring in Bioengineering specializing in Biomechanics and Tissue Engineering. In the Fall of 2003, I joined the Wildsoet Lab through the URAP program and since then I have participated in projects that involve ultrasound measurements of chick eyes, retinal pigment epithelial cell cultures, and choroidal fibroblast cultures.
After I receive my Bachelor's Degree in Bioengineering, I plan on working for a biotechnology firm for a few years before either going back to school for a higher degree or taking a year off and realizing my life long dream of visiting all seven continents of the world.

Email Ying Zhang (2004)