Heaten Oakes named Idaho State University April 2018 CPI of the month

Oakes’ internship focused on biomedical research using zebrafish. His contributions included helping develop and using a scoring protocol on recorded videos of juvenile zebrafish that had previously been exposed to psychoactive drugs during their early developmental stages. His supervisors were Verona Nicolae, biological sciences graduate student, and Mark Austin, professor of molecular neuroscience, who helped Oakes learn firsthand about experimental design.

“I have been allowed to have input on critical design decisions, such as developing a scoring protocol using JWatcher software,” said Oakes. “Verona has been excellent at listening to my input and allowing me to help make decisions that will positively benefit the outcome of the project.”

Oakes is described as reliable, hard-working, conscientious and honest.

“Besides widening his knowledge across different disciplines, Heaton has been proved to be a very active student and a great team member,” Verona said.

After graduation in May, Oakes intends to apply to medical school. He hopes to one day pursue an internal medicine discipline, such as endocrinology and cardiology. In his spare time, Oakes enjoys watching movies and in another life he said he would have been an actor or drama movie director.