“Every day spent in the lab is a new learning experience,” says Praveen Chatani ’10 of Montego Bay, Jamaica.  The neuroscience major and graduate of Deerfield Academy was a Phelps Family University Fellow at St. Lawrence last summer, using his stipend to spend time on collaborative research with one of his professors.

“Every day spent in the lab is a new learning experience, and it is my firm belief that every lesson learned is valuable in its own respect,” he says. “The faculty at St. Lawrence are more than happy to take on student researchers; from the tales of my friends at other universities, it seems safe to say this is an uncommon thing. In the lab, it is extremely important that a student feels comfortable asking questions, making mistakes, and learning from minor stumbles. The faculty at SLU do an excellent job of maintaining this comfort level. Professors here know that research should be fun, exciting and challenging.”

Praveen has been working with Johnson Professor of Biology Joe Erlichman, a neurologist and his faculty advisor, for over a year. “He takes as much interest in his students' futures as we ourselves do,” he says. His summer research, “The Novel Use of CeO2 Nanoparticles to Reduce Ischemic Brain Injury,” has continued this fall as his Senior-Year Experience; he says “I am a much more organized, thorough student because of it. The summer taught me that scientific research can be extremely frustrating--it is seldom easy, always painstaking, and at times it refuses to cooperate--but the moment it goes right, there really is no better feeling in the world.”

In addition to his studies, Praveen has been a new-student orientation leader and is a member of the rugby team, as well as the student director of the Science Writing Center.