Meet Our Students: Aisha Udochi
Aisha Udochi
Personality, Individual Differences, and Behavior Genetics (PIB)
Where are you from?
Conway, Arkansas
Tell us about your research at the University.
Attending the University of Minnesota has allowed me to tackle research interests that were not available to me through my undergraduate institution. These research interests include analyzing and mapping personality traits to the neural networks that govern their expression. My goal is to identify how relatively straightforward descriptions of personality are linked to the much more complex processes of brain function. Additionally, I am also interested in understanding how personality traits and their neural underpinnings relate to a person's perceived sense of self.
What surprised you about living in the Twin Cities?
How prepared the Twin Cities are with handling the snow! I will go to sleep with multiple inches of snow on the ground one night and wake up the next morning with most of the streets between my home and the university completely cleared! While this doesn't mean that I am any less cautious when driving on the streets in the winter, the fact that they handle their weather so efficiently is certainly an upgrade from Arkansas!
What would you like potential applicants to the PhD program to know?
Integrity is clearly important to the Psychology Department at the University of Minnesota. If you decide to apply here, I can guarantee that you will be working with a faculty adviser that is not only an expert within their field, but also a genuinely great mentor who cares about your well-being, cares about the quality of the work that you do, and will teach you how to conduct research in the most transparent and honest way possible.
