Roberto Zamora started the IMSD program in June 2008. He earned his B.A. in psychology May 2011 and conducted research in the Life-Span Human Senses laboratory under Dr. Claire Murphy. The Life-Span laboratory conducts studies on the latencies and amplitudes of olfactory event-related potentials in aging and how they may be used as a promising assessment tool for Alzheimer’s disease. Roberto’s project contributed to an NIH-funded project on event-related brain potentials (ERP). The aim is to use olfactory ERPs to discriminate persons who do and do not have the Apolipoprotein E4 allele, which is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. Having mastered the protocol, Roberto learned electrode cap placement and monitoring of the program that records the event-related potentials during encoding and retrieval of odor memories in a recognition memory task. Running more than 20 participants, his research contributions resulted in the second authorship on a poster at the American Psychological Association Conference in August. In November of 2010, he was first author on a poster presentation on ERPs in older adults at the Society for Neuroscience meeting here in San Diego. Roberto also presented a portion of this work as an oral presentation at the Quantitative Training for Underrepresented Groups at the University of San Diego in August 2010, as well as contributed to a publication based on the SFN presentation: Adiposity measures predict olfactory processing speed in older adult carriers of the apolipoprotein E E4 allele (in Clinical Neurophysiology). Roberto is enjoying being a Ph.D. student in Clinical Psychology at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa and returned to SDSU in December of 2011 to mentor current behavioral science students on track for graduate school. His goal is to pursue a faculty position, teach, conduct research and encourage others to pursue a higher education and a career in psychology. Special thanks to the NIH-NIGMS for funding Roberto and to all of the faculty/staff who mentored Roberto during his undergraduate training.
Roberto Zamora will be at SDSU on Friday, July 13th to share his doctoral student experiences in clinical psychology. All students welcome to attend.
Friday, July 13
12:00 pm – 2:30 pm
ROOM TO BE POSTED SOON. PLEASE CHECK BACK.