• Sruthi Potturi, a biology freshman from Allen, Texas, focused on using vagus nerve stimulation on post-traumatic stress disorder subjects to enhance extinction learning, the decreased response to a conditioned stimulus. She was mentored by Dr. Christa McIntyre, associate professor in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, during the Clark Summer Research Program.

Early August saw the return of the annual poster symposium that concludes each year’s Anson L. Clark Summer Research Program, now in its 51st year.

The program’s 72 participants, all high-achieving incoming first-year students at The University of Texas at Dallas, took advantage of an early opportunity to put on lab coats and contribute to research. This fall, they will enter degree programs — ranging from biomedical engineering to information technology and systems — in five of the University’s schools: the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, the Naveen Jindal School of Management and the School of Interdisciplinary Studies.

Overseen by the Hobson Wildenthal Honors College, the Clark program began in 1968 at the Southwest Center for Advanced Studies, which would become UT Dallas the next year.

The program is funded by an endowment from the Anson L. Clark Foundation.