Linda Wang is a bright young lady whose energy and vibrant personality brought a vitality to this class. She submitted her assignments in a timely fashion, was attentive during lecture, and participated daily in small group discussion. Linda’s written assignments were well done and demonstrated a clear understanding of most of the material we covered in class and in the readings. For her mini project on animal perception Linda chose to research the capybara. This fascinating animal was a great choice for Linda to investigate.

Lastly, I would encourage Linda to reflect on what she has learned about non-human animal sentience and cognition to further understand horses and horsemanship – something that is very close to her heart. By doing so she will be able to help others who work with horses to better understand the needs of these highly sensitive animals and encourage them to approach their riding and handling in a way that is more aligned to a horse’s unique nature. In fact, for her final presentation Linda read and discussed some of the research currently being done on horses, an excellent presentation that clearly demonstrated her passion for this work.

I would also encourage Linda to explore the various career related to this field, as she is passionate about animals and would find this a most fulfilling pursuit.

It was a pleasure having Linda in class this summer.

Sincerely,

Michelle Ashkin, Instructor

Inside the Animal Mind: What Animals Think and Feel

Linda is an exceptional junior equestrian athlete who has been consistently training and striving for excellence during her eight years in the sport. Her dedication knows no bounds as she remains undeterred by any weather condition. She demonstrates remarkable confidence while training her horses, conveying trust to them with every passing moment. Her hard work and unwavering spirit have paid off; she has achieved spectacular success in all competitions over the past years. Not only has Linda taken home podium victories in junior competitions, but she’s also had impressive showings in mixed age tournaments involving over one hundred human-horse pairs. Furthermore, she’s made tremendous contributions to her team and club by always lifting up her teammates and bringing home multiple trophies from team events. This has also been noticed by the local government, who now offer strong support for her endeavors. Moreover, Linda’s horse welfare improvement proposals were acknowledged by stud farm owners who now provide better care for the retired racing horses. I believe she has the ability and will continue her equestrian path and definitely has the strength to win more honors and make her contribution to her future school !

Linda is a very dynamic and thoughtful student who displayed a great deal of passion for biomedical research in this year’s summer research program.

She developed several different interests during the course and eventually settled on a project to study the possible role of the metal-binding protein Metallothionein-3 in anxiety-like behaviors in mice. This was a notably creative idea to focus on the relationship between anxiety and a protein that might be thought to primarily be involved in metal (Zn2+ion) homeostasis. There was some prior work showing that MT-3 knockout mice have increased anxiety-like behaviors. Linda and her partner devised experiments to test whether manipulation of the level of MT-3 protein would be correlated with changes in corticosteroid levels and anxiety-like behaviors in a ‘hole-board test’.
Linda and her research partner presented their ideas in well-executed final presentation and thoughtful research proposal essay. It was well-organized and logical, proceeding from a general introduction of prior research on Metallothionein proteins in anxiety behaviors to the hypothesis that the function of MT-3 might involve modulation of the HPA axis.

Overall, Linda demonstrated a great deal of enthusiasm and sophistication in how she approached her research goals and demonstrated a considerable aptitude for neuroscience research.