December 2025
While Alzheimer’s Awareness Month ends in December, the Wilber Lab’s work continues year-round. Dr. Aaron Wilber recently spoke with WCTV about new findings suggesting a link between sleep quality and Alzheimer’s disease, which affects nearly 7 million Americans. Watch the full interview here.
Undergraduates Hafsa Baysal, Eva Allen, and Alexa Csonka earned travel awards to present their research at the Sunposium Conference (March 9–11, 2026), hosted by the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience.
November 2025
Technician Khari Hardin presented his research at ABRCMS 2025 in San Antonio, TX.
Our graduate students presented their research at the 2025 Society for Neuroscience Conference (SfN) in San Diego, CA.
August 2025
Technician Khari Hardin received a Travel Award to present his abstract, “Longitudinal characterization of sodium MRI, DTI, and action-place spatial learning in the TgF344-AD rat reveals impaired action-place learning emerging at 5-months” at ABRCMS 2025 in San Antonio, TX.
July 2025
Graduate student Emily Salvador was featured in Spectrum magazine for her innovative research on how sleep and the brain’s glymphatic system may influence Alzheimer’s disease. Working in the Wilber Lab, Emily is uncovering how disrupted sleep impacts memory and neurodegeneration, advancing our understanding of the disease’s root causes.
Graduate student Yichuan presented his data at the Neuroscience Summer Seminar.
May 2025
Undergraduate Amy Le and Technician Khari Hardin presented their research at the 2025 Florida Consortium on the Neurobiology of Cognition (FCNC) in Orlando, FL.
April 2025
Graduate Student Isa Coiduras was awarded the 2025 Undergraduate Research Mentor Award. Congratulations Isa!
Undergraduate students Lauren Dougherty, Elizabeth Brown, Amy Le, Hafsa Baysal, Rebecca Branson, Aayushi Ranjan, Camille Sonalia, and Alexa Csonka presented their posters at the Undergraduate Research Symposium at FSU.
January 2025
The Wilber Lab was featured on the official FSU College of Arts and Sciences podcast, highlighting our research on Alzheimer's Disease and Sleep. Emily did an excellent job making the science accessible to a broad audience. Be sure to check it out!
October 2024
Dr. Aaron Wilber spoke at an SFN press conference highlighting Emily's work. Her abstract, along with only a few dozen others, was chosen for special recognition out of over 10,000 abstracts.
The Wilber Lab presented their research at the 2024 Society for Neuroscience Conference (SfN) in Chicago, IL.
August 2024
Graduate Student Yichuan Chen joined the lab.
July 2024
Graduate Student Emily Salvador presented her data at the Neuroscience Summer Seminar.
Alfonso Brea Guerrero successfully defended his dissertation, becoming the third PhD candidate to graduate from the Wilber Lab. Congratulations, Dr. Brea Guerrero!
June 2024
Dr. Aaron Wilber attended the iNAV 2024 Symposium in Merano, Italy, to present on Reference Frame Coordination in a Parietal-Hippocampal Network.
May 2024
Technicians Leslie Alday and Sydney Ragsdale presented their research at the 2024 Florida Consortium on the Neurobiology of Cognition (FCNC) in Miami, FL.
April 2024
Graduate Student Isabel Coiduras joined the lab.
March 2024
Technician Sydney Ragsdale and Graduate Student Emily Salvador presented their research at the 2024 American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry in Atlanta, GA.
Danielle Cushing successfully defended her dissertation, becoming the second PhD candidate to graduate from the Wilber Lab. Congratulations, Dr. Cushing!
January 2024
Graduate Student Danielle Cushing was featured in FSU’s College of Arts and Sciences Student Spotlight: Link
November 2023
The Wilber Lab presented their research at the 2023 Society for Neuroscience Conference (SfN) in Washington D.C.
August 2023
Graduate student Emily Salvador joined the lab, supported by a two-year Neuroscience Fellowship award!
Technician Johanna Marquez Diaz accepted a position serving as a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute STEM Public Policy Fellow. During the initial phase of her fellowship, she will be in the office of Congresswoman Lois Frankel, who represents Florida’s 22nd District. Her responsibilities will encompass Health and Research legislation for the DC office, covering areas such as Women’s Health and Research funding. She'll also be involved with the Democratic Women’s Caucus, chaired by the Congresswoman, as well as the Labor, Health and Human Services subcommittee. Congresswoman Frankel is a member of the Appropriations committee, which oversees funding for agencies like NIH, CDC, and the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services.
July 2023
Danielle Cushing presented her work at the 2023 Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
April 2023
Undergraduate students Maggy Kauffman and Kelsey Coss presented their posters at the Undergraduate Research Symposium at FSU.
November 2022
The Wilber Lab presented their research at the 2022 Society for Neuroscience Conference (SfN) in San Diego, CA.
August 2022
Congratulations to Danielle Cushing who received the NOA for the first submission of her F31.
Dr. Wilber and graduate student Danielle Cushing attended the Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC) in San Diego, CA, where Danielle presented her latest research.
July 2022
Alina Stimmell successfully defended her dissertation, becoming the first PhD candidate to graduate from the Wilber Lab. Congratulations, Dr. Stimmell!
May 2022
The Wilber Lab attended the 2022 Florida Consortium on the Neurobiology of Cognition (FCNC) Meeting, hosted by Florida State University and organized by Dr. Aaron Wilber, who was also elected president.
April 2022
Anisa Shashaty (top) and Ryan Thé (bottom) presented their posters at the Undergraduate Research Symposium at FSU.
Undergraduate and Lab Technician Johanna Marquez Diaz wass awarded the Clara Kibler Davis Scholarship.
Undergraduate Jessica Dixon received an NSF Fellowship and also the FSU President's Undergraduate Humanitarian of the Year award.
February 2022
Graduate Student Alfonso Brea Guerrero joined the lab.
November 2021
Jessica Dixon presented her virtual poster at the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) annual meeting.
Alina Stimmell and Danielle Benthem presented their work virtually at the iSCAN meeting on Spatial Cognition in Aging and Neurodegeneration.
October 2021
Dr. Wilber gave a public talk on October 25 as part of the Institute for Successful Longevity’s Brown Bag Series on Alzheimer’s related research in the lab. The talk is available on the institutes YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/--cv5Po3JDY
August 2021
Dr. Wilber, graduate students Alina Stimmell and Danielle Benthem, undergraduate student Jessica Dixon, and lab technician Jordan Ogg attended the first hybrid meeting of Florida Consortium on the Neurobiology of Cognition (FCNC), organized by Dr. Wilber. Jordan, Jessica, Alina and Danielle presented in the data blitz section of the conference, with Danielle tying for best presentation
April 2021
Congrats to graduate student Danielle Benthem for winning Best Talk at FSU Graduate Research Day for her presentation on “Impaired Hippocampal-cortical interactions during sleep in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease”.
Congrats to undergraduate Jessica Dixon on her acceptance into the Cold Springs Harbor undergraduate research program, where she will work in Dr. Cheadle's laboratory.
Congratulations to undergraduate Ashley Silk for successfully defending her undergraduate honors thesis titled "Rest Sessions Before and After Training May Partially Recover Impaired Spatial Navigation in Mice Modeling Tau and Amyloid-Beta Aggregation Aspects of Alzheimer’s Disease".
Congratulations to undergraduate Jessica Dixon for placing second for her poster presentation “Spatial Disorientation and Alzheimer’s Disease: The Relationship Between Activation Profiles in the Brain’s Navigational System and Reorientation Deficits in the 3xTg-AD Mouse Model of Tau and Amyloid Beta Aggregation” at the Atlanta Neuroscience Symposium.
March 2021
Congratulations to graduate student Alina Stimmell for the acceptance of her first author paper “Tau pathology profile across a parietal-hippocampal brain network is associated with impaired spatial reorientation in the 3xTg-AD Mouse” in Frontiers in Aging.
Dr. Wilber was interviewed for the “Where are they now?” Section of the newsletter for the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience.
February 2021
Undergraduate Jessica Dixon presented preliminary data from her honors thesis on spatial learning and memory induced activation profiles across the parietal-hippocampal network in 3xTg-AD mice at the Florida Undergraduate Research Conference on February 27th at 9am. A video of her poster presentation can be found here: Poster.
The Wilber lab, in collaboration with Co-Investigator Dr. Ben Clark, received a 5-year $2.2 million grant from the National Institutes on Aging to study why Alzheimer's disease leads to difficulty navigating new surroundings, what brain changes may underlie getting lost, and treatments for reversing these impairments and the underlying brain dysfunction. It was covered by a FSU press release and an article by the FSU Institute for Successful Longevity.
August 2020
Graduate student Yicheng Zheng joined the lab!
July 2020
Our lab was featured in both television and radio interviews highlighting research from Danielle's recent paper.
June 2020
Our lab is featured in a news piece highlighting research from Danielle's recent paper. View here.
May 2020
Danielle published Impaired Hippocampal-Cortical Interactions during Sleep in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease in Current Biology.
Congratulations to Melissa Meynadasy for being selected for the Interdisciplinary Clinical Neuroscience (ICN) Training Grant. As an ICN trainee, she will receive 2 years of support for her research. Melissa is a graduate student in Dr. Natalie Sachs-Ericsson's lab and Dr. Wilber is her cross-area mentor.
March 2020
Congratulations to undergraduate student Jessica Dixon, who was awarded the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. Jessica's goals are to conduct research on movement disorders as a translational neuroscience professor at a research orientated university.
December 2019
From undergraduate student Jessica Dixon:
“I just found out that the university has chosen me as an FSU nominee to the national level of Goldwater consideration. FSU can only send a maximum of 4 students, and it is uncommon to be nominated as a sophomore. Goldwater is the most prestigious undergraduate scholarship given in the natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics, so even being a nominee at the university-level very exciting. It also provides some funding for graduate school.”
November 2019
Danielle published Impaired Hippocampal-Cortical Interactions During Sleep and Memory Reactivation Without Consolidation in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease in the pre-print server BioRxIV.
October 2019
Jessica Dixon presented her research for the IDEA grant at the President's Showcase of Undergraduate Research Excellence.
Graduate students Christine Simmons, Danielle Benthem, and Alina Stimmell presented their research at the 2019 Society for Neuroscience (SfN) in Chicago, IL.
June 2019
Undergraduate Luis Santos-Molina accepted the post-baccalaureate Intramural Research Training Award position at the National Institutes of Health. He will be researching at the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) in the laboratory of the Institute Research Director, Dr. George Kunos, with one of his senior Investigators, Dr. Grzegorz Godlewski. He will be there for two years before pursuing medical school.
April 2019
Jessica Dixon presented our work on the connection between spatial reorientation and Alzheimer's disease at the Undergraduate Research Symposium at Florida State University.
March 2019
Undergraduate student Jessica Dixon was awarded the 2019 Scott and Ina McNichols Undergraduate Research Award.
January 2019
Alina Stimmell published Impaired Spatial Reorientation in the 3xTg-AD Mouse Model of Alzheimer's Disease.
November 2018
Dr. Wilber, Alina Stimmell, and Christine Simmons presented at the Society of Neuroscience (SfN) in San Diego, CA.
June 2018
Graduate student Danielle Benthem joined the lab, supported by a Legacy Fellowship from the Graduate School at Florida State University!
May 2018
Undergraduate Andreza Melilli presented at the FSU College of Medicine.
April 2018
Undergraduate Nicole Bruce presented our work on the role of the parietal cortex on sequence learning at the Undergraduate Research Symposium at Florida State University
February 2018
Impaired Spatial Reorientation in the 3xTg-AD Mouse Model of Alzheimer's Disease was published in the pre-print server BioRxIV
November 2017
Our work received unique press coverage in a national comic:
Alina Stimmell presented our work on spatial re-orientation in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s at Neuroscience (SfN) 2017 in Washington D.C.
September 2017
Laminar Organization of Encoding and Memory Reactivation in the Parietal Cortex was published in the journal Neuron. This work was covered by a handful of newspapers, magazines, and websites (e.g., Tallahassee Democrat, New Jersey Tribune).
Dr. Wilber participated in a radio interview with Science Update.
August 2017
Graduate student Christine Simmons joined the lab, supported by a half-year Neuroscience Fellowship award!
May 2017
Dr. Wilber, Alina, and Christine attended the founding and first meeting of Florida Consortium on the Neurobiology of Cognition (FCNC).
April 2017
Dr. Wilber was awarded an R00 award from the National Institute on Aging to investigate Neural Mechanisms of dysfunctional spatial orientation in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease.
March 2017
Lauren Thompson presented our work on spatial re-orientation in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s at the Undergraduate Research Symposium at Florida State University.
“Laminar organization of encoding and memory reactivation in the parietal cortex.” was published in the pre-print server BioRxIV and highlighted by the Simmons Foundation.
February 2017
Dr. Wilber was awarded a First-Year Assistant Professor Award by Florida State University.
Laboratory Manager Shawn Moseley joined the lab.
August 2016
Graduate student Alina Stimmell joined the lab, supported by a two-year Neuroscience Fellowship award.
Dr. Wilber joined the Psychology Department and Program in Neuroscience at Florida State University!