Malak Nechnach (she/her) is a senior majoring in Physiology and Neurobiology with a minor in Mathematics. She is a McNair Scholar, a SURF grant recipient, and passionate about expanding access to research. On campus, Malak is the founder and president of the Undergraduate Research Society (URS) and the Undergraduate Science Journal (USJ), the co-president of both the French Club and the UConn Computational Neuroscience Research Society (UNRS), and a member of the Alpha Lambda Delta Honor Society. She also serves as a Resident Assistant and a SPIN Instructor at UConn’s Rec Center.
Her first summer research experience was as a biomedical research intern with GE Healthcare in Casablanca, Morocco, where she worked under the neuroscience and oncology divisions and explored the use of advanced imaging technologies in neurological diagnostics and treatment planning. The following year, she joined Dr. Inge-Marie Eigsti’s lab in the Psychology Department, contributing to projects on how social communication processes in autism map onto brain mechanisms. She then transitioned to Dr. Natale Sciolino’s lab in Physiology and Neurobiology, where her research examines how high-fat diet exposure alters stress-sensitive norepinephrine circuits in the brain. Supported by the SURF grant and the McNair Scholars Program, Malak spent Summer 2025 advancing her project High-fat diet enhances negative affective behaviors and dysregulates stress-responsive activity of locus coeruleus and other medullary catecholaminergic neurons. She presented this work at the UConn CAPS Summer Symposium and will present at the University of New Mexico McNair Scholars Research Conference in Fall 2025, with plans to continue the project into her senior thesis.
Beyond UConn, Malak is part of the Yale School of Medicine’s PATHS Program (PhD-NGEI track), engaging in professional development, mentoring, and preparation for PhD training. She was also selected for the UConn@COP Fellowship, which develops future leaders in climate science and policy while advancing sustainability initiatives.
Malak is extremely passionate about research, as she plans to pursue a PhD in behavioral neuroscience after college. She believes research is a great opportunity to take advantage of in college, which is why she is looking forward to helping destroy the stigma that undergraduate research is unattainable.
Student Research Blog Posts by Malak: