Taqdees Gohar is a junior at Rutgers University–Camden majoring in Biology. She is an aspiring physician-scientist interested in neurodegenerative diseases. Currently, she is working in Dr. Elizabeth West’s lab at Rowan School of Osteopathic Medicine where she studies the effect of Alzheimer’s disease on working memory. She is the first in her family to be pursuing a degree in science.

Taqdees received a best poster award from the national Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS), for her research project, “Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Fish Oil Improve Learning and Memory in Drosophila melanogaster.” The work for this project took place in the course “Principles and Practices of Biological Research.”

Ms. Gohar is also a recipient of the Sandy Stewart Undergraduate Research Grant and a MARC (Maximizing Access for Research Careers) fellow. The MARC program gave support to twenty-one students to attend the ABRCMS.