Highlights
Student Profile: Sarah Ordaz
Sarah Ordaz, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, took a four-year break between her undergraduate studies at Duke University and her graduate work at the School of Arts and Sciences. During that hiatus between degrees, she conducted social cognition research in schools, taught seventh grade science, and worked at the National Institutes of Health coordinating a twin study that examined adolescent brain development.
"I feel like I'll be in my profession for a long time," says Ordaz. "I wanted to evaluate other things to determine exactly what I wanted to do."
Her career exploration led to the realization that, while she enjoyed research, Ordaz also liked the sense of accomplishment and personal connection that came with hands-on, clinical work. She has combined these two interests to pursue the emerging specialization of healthy brain development in children and adolescents.
"There are plenty of people already doing research on atypical brain development. But very few people are specifically studying brain maturation in healthy children and adolescents. By understanding typical development, you can then understand how the trajectories of brain development differ for those who go on to have mental illness," explains Ordaz.
The research she is involved in uses functional brain imaging—fMRI—to map patterns of neural activity in the brain while subjects of various ages are asked to (you could say any of these depending on how specific you want to be): do a high-level cognitive task/exert cognitive control over their actions/inhibit a response. Since the study necessitates working with the same group of subjects—nearly 200 children—as they grow over several years, Ordaz has the opportunity to develop the kind of connections that she enjoyed during her teaching days.
In 2006, Ordaz received a fellowship from the University's K. Leroy Irvis Fellowship Program, an initiative designed to enhance the diversity of the Pitt's graduate student population and eventually the professorate. Early in 2007, she was notified that she was a recipient of a three-year National Science Foundation Research Fellowship. This support will provide Ordaz with the flexibility to spend more of her time in the lab.
Offers Ordaz, "It's very rewarding to know that, through research, you are making a contribution to a body of knowledge that will ultimately impact the treatment people receive."
