Elizabeth Glater’s research examines the ways the nervous system allows animals to generate behavioral responses to their environment. Her laboratory uses the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans to investigate the genetic, neuronal, and chemical basis of bacterial food choice behavior. Working with C. elegans, which has many genes that are similar to humans and a simple, well-characterized nervous system of only 302 neurons, she and a team of undergraduate researchers are seeking to understand how genes and environment modify the nervous system to produce different food preferences.