{"id":77357,"date":"2021-06-22T08:36:15","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T12:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=77357"},"modified":"2025-10-17T16:43:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T20:43:25","slug":"khanna-neuroscience-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/khanna-neuroscience-mental-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Grads 2021: Neha Khanna Finds Future Path Through Neuroscience Research and Carleton Mental Health Student Supports"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Great Grads 2021: Neha Khanna Finds Future Path Through Neuroscience Research and Carleton Mental Health Student Supports\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Neha Khanna was still in high school when she began asking questions about mental health.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cI noticed that my peers and I were afraid to speak up about mental health issues, and I really wanted to understand why,\u201d Khanna recalls.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cBut I was also curious to know what was driving mental health challenges at the molecular level in the brain. I wanted to know what makes each person unique and why some people are more susceptible to developing mental illness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Neha
Neha Khanna<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

She joined her school\u2019s student mental health committee, helping arrange a school-wide conference that promoted mental health literacy. For Khanna, it was a game changer.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThese amazing speakers came in and spoke about their journeys, and I realized that this was the field I was meant to be in.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

At the time, Carleton was the sole university in Canada to offer neuroscience and mental health<\/a> as an undergraduate program. Khanna arrived, ready to explore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the experiences of transitioning from high school, moving to a new province, adjusting to residence, not to mention meeting new academic demands, took a toll.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Support Is Available<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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It wasn\u2019t immediately obvious to her what supports Carleton could provide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So she became an advocate, taking on roles as science wellness director and health promotion leader for Carleton Wellness<\/a>. Among many volunteer and extracurricular activities, she presented mental health and wellness workshops, wrote wellness-related blog posts<\/a>, served as a volunteer note-taker at the Paul Menton Centre<\/a> for Students with Disabilities, and mentored incoming students in a pioneering support program initiated by the Neuroscience Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIt can be challenging to reach out for help,\u201d Khanna notes.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cMy extracurriculars and volunteering all came from the same place of wanting to create that safe environment and let people know that support is available.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Khanna also served as director of advocacy and education at UNICEF Carleton and was praised for the multidisciplinary connections she encouraged there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, her passion for research led her to work in four labs during her undergraduate degree, always with a focus on student mental health or wellness. A positive feedback loop was created – what she learned in the lab informed her extracurriculars, while her first-hand exposure to student experiences fuelled her research questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before starting medical school this fall, Khanna will expand her honour\u2019s thesis research, which originally looked at how the transition to online learning due to COVID-19 has impacted student mental health and academic success. Through the I-CUREUS<\/a> program, she hopes her study will help lead to mental health services becoming more accessible for students of all demographics.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cI feel as though I\u2019ve gone full circle,\u201d Khanna reflects.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cIn high school I thought: \u2018neuroscience is so cool; I want to be that person who helps to spread awareness and show that mental health matters.\u2019 Now here I am, doing exactly that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Carleton faculty, staff and senior administration joined Provost Scholar Award recipients and their guests in a virtual award ceremony on Wednesday, May 5, 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s leaving Carleton on a high note, as one of eight exceptional undergraduate students who received the 2021 Provost Scholar Award.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cI\u2019m endlessly grateful for all of the support Carleton and the Faculty of Neuroscience have offered me,\u201d Khanna says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to apply the valuable skills I\u2019ve acquired in my future endeavours.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—
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Neha Khanna was still in high school when she began asking questions about mental health. \u201cI noticed that my peers and I were afraid to speak up about mental health issues, and I really wanted to understand why,\u201d Khanna recalls. \u201cBut I was also curious to know what was driving mental health challenges at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":77359,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[25],"cu_story_tag":[1919],"class_list":["post-77357","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-student-experience","cu_story_tag-faculty-of-science"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/77357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/77357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97878,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/77357\/revisions\/97878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=77357"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=77357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}