Rachel Vascassenno

• Home institution: Eastern Kentucky University
  
  
• Year: Junior
  
  
• Major: Biology
  
  
• Research Site: University of Kentucky
  
  
• What will I be researching: I am unsure what I will be doing this summer, but I am excited to get experience in a lab setting!
  
  
• Future goals: My future goals entails getting a doctorate in either genetics/neuroscience. I have had a fascination with understanding the molecular side of biology, so anything in that field I think will be a great fit for me. I have always been fascinated with the idea of something so small can hold so much power in our everyday lives.
  
  
• Interest/Hobby: Something I am passionate about pursuing past research is being able to teach the physical sciences in Deaf schools.
  
  Here in Kentucky, we only have one Deaf and Hard of Hearing school. Some of the teachers there don't fully understand sign language, so they have interpreters for those students, which (to some degree) inhibits a good relationship with the professor. I want to be able to have direct teacher/student relationship that most teachers have in hearing schools. 
  
  While I haven't been taught in the Deaf and Hard of Hearing schools, as I am a hearing student, I have been told from professors here at EKU in the American Sign Language Interpreter Program that the hard sciences are not taught the best in Deaf schools, especially in the south. I want to be to help students in the Deaf and Hard and Hearing community be inspired when they take the hard sciences classes instead of dread the idea of taking the classes.
  
  I'm not entirely sure when I became interested in serving the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Community. Many things over the entirety of my life just guided me towards the community. I would assume when I was in third grade and we had the school librarian read the book about Helen Keller is when I was first interested in those with accessibility needs. 
  
  I really like to talk about the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community with people!

October 2022: Rachel, along with Christine Haddad and Rachel’s summer research mentor Robin Cooper, University of Kentucky, published, “The effects on resting membrane potential and synaptic transmission by Doxapram (blocker of K2p channels) at the Drosophila neuromuscular junction” in Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part C. Said Dr. Cooper, “[This is a] very important paper as it is the first to demonstrate K2p like channels in Drosophila muscles as a model system for all animals. K2p channels are responsible for maintaining the resting membrane potential of cells.”