Published August 1, 2011 This content is archived.
Thomas J. Covey, a third-year graduate student in the Neuroscience Program, has received a highly competitive Gina M. Finzi Memorial Student Summer Fellowship from the Lupus Foundation of America (LFA).
The fellowship supports Covey’s summer research project at UB. He is examining the relationship between cognitive deficits and neurophysiological and neuroimaging measures in systemic lupus erythematosus patients.
To determine impairment in brain structure and function he is using electroencephalogram and diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging.
Biomedical research on lupus has not kept pace with research efforts to advance treatments for other chronic and life-threatening diseases, according to the LFA.
That's why the Finzi Memorial Fellowship was created: to foster students’ interest in basic, clinical, translational, epidemiological or behavioral research relevant to lupus.
Students awarded this highly competitive fellowship must be working under the sponsorship and supervision of an established, tenure-track principal investigator who directs a laboratory dedicated at least in part to the investigation of lupus.
Covey works in the laboratory of David W. Shucard, PhD, and Janet Shucard, PhD, co-directors of the Division of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurosciences in the Department of Neurology.
David Shucard is a professor of neurology, pediatrics and psychology; Janet Shucard is a clinical associate professor of neurology.