Medical Scientist Training Program
UCSD School of Medicine
9500 Gilman Drive – MC 0606
La Jolla, CA 92037
rael@ucsd.edu

Undergraduate Education:
The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA
B.A./B.S., June, 1998.
Awards/Honors: Non-sequitur scholarship for academic excellence 1997-8.

Graduate Education
University of California, San Diego, Medical Scientist Training Program.
1. School of Medicine
August 1999 – July 2001
USMLE Exam Step 1, July 2001
2. Department of Neurosciences
July 2001 - present

Graduate coursework, University of California, San Diego
Years 1 and 2 of medical school
Department of Neurosciences
Basic Neuroscience I – III
Neuropsychopharmacology
Physiological Basis of Human Information Processing
Neural Correlates of Consciousness
Neurobiology of Attention

Milestones in the Graduate School Process
June 2003: Passed the minor proposition exam, thus qualifying for M.S. in Neurosciences
November 2003: Passed the advancement to candidacy exam, thus progressing from Graduate Student in Neurosciences to Ph.D. Candidate in Neurosciences

Research
Pre-Graduate Research Experience
The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA
Summer 1996 In the laboratory of Dr.s Betty Kutter, PhD and James Neitzel, PhD, Co-directors of the TESC T4 Bacteriophage Lab.
Area: Analysis of changed gene expression in T4 Bacteriophage due to latent infection status under conditions of limited bacterial growth.
Washington University, Saint Louis, MO
Summer 1997, Summer 1998-Spring 1999, In the laboratory of Dr. Kevin Roth, MD, PhD, Washington University Department of Neuropathology.
Area: Analysis of the regulation of neuronal apoptosis in the rodent focusing on the role of the bcl-2 gene family, using a wide range of molecular and cellular approaches such as RT-PCR, western blotting, in-situ hybridization, cell culture, immunohistochemistry and immunocytochemistry.

Graduate Research Experience: University of California, San Diego
Summer 2000: In the laboratory of Dr. Sacha du Lac, PhD, UCSD Department of Neurosciences and Salk Institute Systems Neurobiology Lab.
Area: Defining the neuroanatomy of the neurons involved in the Vestibulo-Ocular Reflex
Summer – Fall 2001: In the laboratory of Dr. Jaime Pineda, PhD, UCSD Departments of Cognitive Science and Neurosciences.
Area: Assessing the diagnostic capabilities of P300 amplitudes to variable-intensity auditory stimuli in tinnitus
Winter 2001: In the laboratory of Dr. Martin Paulus, MD, UCSD Departments of Neurosciences and Psychiatry.
Area: Assessing the neurophysiology of the attentional blink using fMRI.
Spring 2002-Present: In the laboratory of Dr. John Polich, PhD, UCSD Departments of Psychology and Neurosciences and The Scripps Research Institute Department of Neuropharmacology
Area: The neurophysiology of meditative states and traits as assessed by EEG and ERPs.

Leadership Experience
Founded (2001) and served as Chairperson (2001-present) the UCSD School of Medicine Holistic and Integrative Medicine Student Group (HI-Med)
(group webpage: cyberdev.ucsd.edu/groups/hi-med)

Chairperson for AMSA HuMed – The American Medical Student Association’s Humanistic Medicine Action Committee, 2001-2002. (group webpage: www.amsa.org/humed)

Teaching Experience
The Evergreen State College
1. 1997-8: Tutor for “Upward Bound” teaching underprivileged high-school age students
2. 1996-8: Tutor for the College Mathematics tutoring program
3. 1997-8: Tutor for Integral, Differential, and Multivariate Calculus
4. 1997-8: Tutor for Organic Chemistry

University of California, San Diego
1. Winter 2001, helped teach the meditation component of Dr. Ellen Beck’s medical student elective course on stress management.
2. Spring 2001, Winter 2002, Winter 2003: Initiated, coordinated and taught a medical school elective: Neu 223, “Meditation and Medicine,” with Dr. Mark Geyer, PhD, as faculty advisor.
3. Winter 2003: TA for Dr. John Polich’s Psychology 111A course on advanced statistics for undergraduates

Publications
Shindler KS, Yunker AM, Cahn R, Zha J, Korsmeyer SJ, Roth KA. Trophic support promotes survival of bcl-x-deficient telencephalic cells in vitro. (1998) Cell Death and Differentiation 10:901-10.
Leonard JR, D'Sa C, Cahn BR, Korsmeyer SJ, Roth KA. Bid regulation of neuronal apoptosis. (2001) Brain Res Dev Brain Res 128:187-90.

Research Grants and Awards
Summer 1996: Evergreen State College Summer Research Fellowship in Microbiology
Summer 1997: Developmental Biology Undergraduate Research Fellowship at Washington University, St. Louis
January 2004: Council on Spiritual Practices’ William James Award to support Ph.D. thesis project
January 2004: Heffter Research Institute grant for Ph.D. thesis project: studies of the neurophysiology of self-experience and binocular rivalry stimulus processing as modulated by meditation and psilocybin

Conferences attended
Society for Neuroscience, November 1999, November 2001
Spirituality, Health and Healing, April 2001
The Science of Spiritual Healing, November 2001
Towards a Science of Consciousness, April 2002, April 2004
International Conference on Altered States of Consciousness, October 2002
Quantum Mind, March 2003

Conference Presentations
The Neurophysiology of Meditation -- UCSD All Graduate Research Symposium, Jan 2004
Electrophysiological Measures of Meditation vs. Intentional Thought in Long-Term Meditators -- Towards a Science of Consciousness April 2004

Invited Talks
January 2004, UCSD Experimental Philosophy Lab: Neurophysiology of Meditative States

Membership In Professional Societies
1998, 2003: Society for Neuroscience
2000-Present: American Medical Student Association
2000-Present: American Holistic Medical Association
2002-Present: Association for Transpersonal Psychology
2002-Present: Society for Psychophysical Research
2003-Present: American Psychiatric Association