Researching for Solutions to Complex Diseases

In her first year at the University of Oklahoma, Aylin Ak ’24 (Germany, UWC in Mostar) learned that her grandfather had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She became passionate, she writes, about “research that improves human health by discovering actionable solutions to complicated diseases.”

She joined the OU Visual Neuroscience Laboratory, where she’s now undergraduate research coordinator. “Collaborating with OUVNL’s partner laboratory, the Brain and Biomarker Laboratory led by Dr Lauren Ethridge, I immersed myself in the study of misophonia — a condition in which one or more specific auditory stimuli cause an extreme emotional response. My investigation focused on the neural representation of auditory stimuli in individuals with misophonia and subthreshold autistic phenotypes, utilized by electroencephalography for a comprehensive investigation.

“I presented the project at the 2023 Society for Neuroscience Conference, the world’s largest organization of scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and the nervous system ” She also presented at conferences hosted by Harvard, Yale, and the Vision Sciences Society.

“I have been involved as a board member at the OU Honors Undergraduate Research Journal, in which I helped manage the editorial process,” Aylin adds. “Moreover, I was the service-learning chair for the OU MEDLIFE chapter MEDLIFE is a national non-profit organization focused on bringing quality change to communities through medicine, education, and development I planned and executed a weeklong educational journey to Peru, fostering community development through volunteer work and medical support.”

She is also one of OU’s first UWC grads to join in Greek life, having joined the Delta Gamma sorority.

This profile is part of the “Undergraduates in Action” series from the 2024 Annual Report.