Student Spotlight Spring 2025
Two IPN Graduate students, Shruti Arora and Yara Khatib have both won awards
from the offices of UC Davis Graduate Studies.
Shruti Arora
Shruti Arora has been awarded the Floyd and Mary Schwall Dissertation Year Fellowship in Medical Research for the 2025–2026 academic year. This fellowship provides research and travel support to graduate students conducting medically relevant research. Shruti, an M.D./Ph.D. student, will use the fellowship to advance her dissertation work investigating the neural circuits and cellular mechanisms underlying the effects of psychoactive drugs. Her research focuses on the therapeutic potential of psychedelics in treating neuropsychiatric disorders, with a particular emphasis on developing improved strategies for blinding in psychedelic clinical trials.
Yara Khatib
Yara Khatib won this year’s UC Davis Grad Slam and 2nd place in the UC-wide competition. UC Grad Slam is an annual contest where master’s and doctoral students across the university system sum up their research for a general audience. Participants have three minutes to concisely and effectively communicate their research. Yara spoke on the impact of psychedelics without the “trip.” She brilliantly summarized her research by comparing the brain's structure to transportation infrastructure, wherein a psychedelic analogue can quickly improve the highways (synapses) and intersections (neurons) in the brain to reduce traffic (symptoms of mental health decline). Watch her performance here.