Principal Investigator, Associate Professor

Sezen Kışlal Ph.D.

Dr. Sezen Kışlal joined the Department of Psychology, METU in 2020. She is interested in neuroscience studies in animal models.

Dr. Kışlal did her first postdoctoral training at the Neurosurgery Department in Stanford University, School of Medicine. She has investigated the effect of the noradrenergic system in the behavioral and neuropathological manifestations of ischemic stroke in rodent models. After completing her studies, she joined the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology in Harvard University, School of Medicine (Massachusetts General Hospital) as a postdoctoral research fellow. She has studied the impact of maternal obesity on embryonic brain development, catecholamine neurotransmitter signaling, and offspring neurobehavior in a sex-specific fashion. In addition, she has explored the placenta-brain connection, the relationship between maternal inflammation and the fetal innate immune response to find ways to alleviate deleterious changes.

Sezen received her Ph.D. in Biobehavioral Health Department from Pennsylvania State University. During her graduate studies, she focused on experimental psychology, emphasizing context aversion learning, conditioned taste aversion learning, and selective associative learning in laboratory mice.

E-mail: sezenk@metu.edu.tr

Graduate Students

Diva Korkmaz

Diva graduated from Middle East Technical University with a BSc in Biology. During her undergraduate years, she interned at Kybele's Garden as a Tubitak Star project scholar, finished her internship at the Plankton Laboratory of Hacettepe University, and worked as a special project student at METU's Neurobiology of Disease Lab. She is currently a Cognitive Psychology student at METU. She loves cats and is passionate about fashion.

Göksu Ergez

Göksu is a master's student in the Cognitive Psychology program at Middle East Technical University. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from METU. During her undergraduate studies, she focused on molecular biology, neuroscience, and cancer research. Throughout her undergraduate studies, she gained extensive research experience, including work on brain organoids at An Lab, Korea University in South Korea. Additionally, she completed internships at Yüksek İhtisas University Faculty of Medicine as a Tübitak Star project scholar and at the Cancer Systems Laboratory (CanSyL) at METU. She aims to conduct interdisciplinary research by combining her biological knowledge and skills acquired during her undergraduate education with current studies in cognitive psychology. Outside of the lab, she enjoys painting and photography.

Researchers

Merve Sağlam

Merve Sağlam received her undergraduate degree from Bilecik University, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics in 2016, and her master's degree from Eskişehir Technical University, Department of Biotechnology, in 2020. In addition to working for different companies' research and development programs, she trained students and laboratories on molecular biology and cell culture. She is currently working as a researcher in a TUBITAK project, "Impairing memory consolidation to prevent the development of anticipatory nausea." Last year, she won a scholarship from the Ministry of National Education and will start her Ph.D. at Texas A&M, United States. Besides her academic career, she is also a chess referee and trainer, and a basketball table refere.

E-mail: mervesaglammbg@gmail.com

Interns

Beren Özveren

Eren Can Kılıç

Şevval Arı

Lab Alumni

Ceren Akgül, The University of Connecticut Health Center, USA. PhD Program in Biomedical Science.

Çınar Furkan Ilhan, SISSA (Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati), Italy. PhD Program in Neurobiology.