Ananya Shah

• Direct Patient: Visiting patients and spending quality time with them while also offering families a break. Includes providing crafts, taking patients to playrooms, and overall creating meaningful interactions.
• Buddies on Call: Assisting patients with crafts in the Maker Space, while also visiting individual rooms to provide other activities.

• Patient Experience: Support patients by offering friendly visits, conservations, and by providing different activities (such as books, word searches, etc.)
• Hand Hygiene Helper: Assisted in gathering data regarding the handwashing and sanitization habits of the hospital staff.

Synaptic Dysfunction after Traumatic Brain Injury

• I had the amazing opportunity to learn about and help conduct research with Dr. Carlson and his team, through the First Experiences in Research program at PITT during my second semester college. I learned proper pipetting technique, how to plate tissue, different types of staining, and many other skills. I also learned how to use different software such as Image J and Prism. One take away from my research was that the lack of alpha-synuclein, a protein that plays a role in synaptic function, leads to an increase of Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein after TBI. I now help in the behavioral lab where we test mice and rats, through the beam balance task, Morris Water Maze, and fear conditioning.

• Assisting students, ranging from kindergarten to 12th grade, with mathematics, writing assignments, and standardized testing.