{"id":42269,"date":"2026-05-05T15:20:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T19:20:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=42269"},"modified":"2026-05-15T12:03:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T16:03:31","slug":"makayla-ellison-27-wins-poster-award-at-sc-inbre-science-symposium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/makayla-ellison-27-wins-poster-award-at-sc-inbre-science-symposium\/","title":{"rendered":"Makayla Ellison \u201927 wins poster award at SC INBRE Science Symposium"},"content":{"rendered":"

Makayla Ellison \u201927, a neuroscience<\/a> major from Dillon, South Carolina, won a perfect score from all judges for her poster at the 17th<\/sup> annual SC INBRE Science Symposium<\/a> held earlier this year. The rising senior is coming closer to understanding eating disorders by observing how laboratory rats respond to certain tastes and how they learn to avoid tastes over time.<\/p>\n

In research she first explored in 2025 in Veronica Lee Flores\u2019<\/a> lab, Ellison was able to demonstrate that rats that had prior experience with a set of tastes were able to learn about aversions to new tastes better than rats that had not previously been exposed. She specifically looked at elapsed time between exposure to salty and sour tastes and aversion learning of a new taste.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we eat influences how we learn about food choices in the future. So, these findings have implications for metabolic and appetitive disorders and overall eating behavior,\u201d Ellison said.<\/p>\n

Before her poster session, Ellison admitted her nerves were at full tilt. But she found her zone. \u201cWhen I heard my name announced (as a poster winner) I was stunned,\u201d said Ellison, a first-time presenter. \u201cI was so happy and proud. It made me realize I\u2019m capable of things I didn\u2019t think were possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ellison didn\u2019t just earn an award for best neuroscience presentation; hers was the highest scoring poster of the day in competition with more than 100 students from 15 Primarily Undergraduate Universities and R1 institutions across the state.<\/p>\n

Ellison\u2019s performance will no doubt fuel her aspirations of becoming a full-time neuroscience researcher. And the conference gave her a platform and the practice in communicating her interests more broadly. Ellison said she looks forward to answering more questions under the guidance of Flores, an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Flores has been an exceptional mentor,\u201d Ellison said. \u201cWithout the opportunity to work in her lab last summer, I would not have discovered my love and appreciation for the research process. I owe her a debt of gratitude for the award \u2013 for the time she spent preparing me and the encouragement she gave along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ellison didn’t let a few jitters get in the way of delivering an outstanding poster presentation. She won best neuroscience poster and a perfect score from all judges for her research that explores overall eating behaviors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":257,"featured_media":42273,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,48,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-neuroscience","category-psychology","category-undergraduate-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/257"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42269"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42404,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42269\/revisions\/42404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}