University of Iowa graduate student Brooke Yeager has won the 2023 Kwak-Ferguson Fellowship, a $10,000 award from the Iowa Neuroscience Institute for an upper level graduate student working in the area of neurodegenerative diseases.
Yeager is a fourth-year student in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Neuroscience and conducts research in the lab of Nandakumar Narayanan, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurology. Her research focuses on the neural networks that support cognitive control and working memory mechanisms. In particular, she uses a multi-modal approach to address the neurophysiological origins of cognitive impairments in Parkinson’s disease. Yeager’s research combines neuroimaging (EEG and fMRI) and neuromodulation (tES) methods to gain a deeper understanding of brain network dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease.
The fellowship will support her travel to the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington, DC in November to present, “Altered mid-frontal theta dynamics indicate failure to engage cognitive control for working memory in Parkinson’s disease.”
Narayanan said Brooke is a “rigorous scientist and an incredible scientific citizen who is always thinking about how to make the world a better place.”
Yeager’s previous awards include a blue ribbon poster award at the 2022 American Psychological Association meeting and a 2023 Summer Research Fellowship from the UI Graduate College. She serves as President of the University of Iowa Graduate Women in Science and as a Senator in the Graduate Student Senate.
The Kwak-Ferguson Fellowship was established by Donald Timm, a Muscatine native and graduate of the UI College of Law who spent more than 30 years working for the U.S. Department of Defense as an expert on international law. He created the fellowship in honor of two individuals—his friend and mentor, Mr. Myung-Duk Kwak, a Korean attorney and statesman, and his aunt, Louise A.M. (Amelia Marie) Brown Ferguson, an educator and missionary—both of whom died due to complications from Parkinson’s disease.