Daniel Birkhead delivers research-based presentation at Mount David Summit

2014 Apr 4

Bates College student Daniel Birkhead of Amesbury, Mass., delivered a researched-based presentation at this year's Mount David Summit, the college's annual campus-wide celebration of student academic achievement held in late March.

Broadly multidisciplinary, Mount David Summit shows the depth and expanse of scholarship among Bates students, highlighting undergraduate research; student creative work in art, dance, theater, music and film/video; projects conducted in the context of academic courses; and community-engaged research.

"Mount David Summit provides students with the opportunity to demonstrate creative and subject-area mastery, as well as hone analytical, research, writing and communication skills," said Matthew Auer, dean of the faculty at Bates. "It's also a practical dry run for life beyond Bates -- in the workplace, in graduate study and in our civic engagement -- where we are often asked to present, and we need to be prepared."

Birkhead, who is majoring in neuroscience at Bates, delivered a presentation titled "Long-term Exposure to Male Status Specific Odors Elicits Mitral Cell Synaptic and Intrinsic Plasticity in the Accessory Olfactory Bulb of Female Mice." His research was supervised by Jason Castro, assistant professor of neuroscience at Bates.

Birkhead, the son of Richard G. Birkhead of Amesbury, Mass., is a 2010 graduate of Tyngsboro High School.

Located in Lewiston, Maine, Bates is internationally recognized as a leading college of the liberal arts, attracting 2,000 students from across the U.S. and around the world. Since 1855, Bates has been dedicated to educating the whole person through creative and rigorous scholarship in a collaborative residential community. With a commitment to affordability, Bates has always admitted students without regard to gender, race, religion or national origin. Cultivating intellectual discovery and informed civic action, Bates prepares leaders sustained by a love of learning and zeal for responsible stewardship of the wider world.