I am broadly interested in how microcircuits in the brain can influence behaviors. I started my research journey as a freshman at Arizona State University where in the behavioral neuroscience department I worked in a neurobiology of learning and memory lab led by Dr. Heather Bimonte-Nelson. My projects there focused on the impact of estrogenic hormone therapy on cognition. I then remained at ASU after graduation and worked in the developmental neuroscience lab of Dr. Jason Newbern for two years as a research technician. As a trained behaviorist, I was able to build the behavioral aspect of Dr. Newbern’s lab in order to study a group of neurodevelopment disorders known as RASopathies. I focused on inhibitory interneurons of the cortex and eventually went on to write a funded NSF-GRFP on inhibitory cholinergic neurons in the basal forebrain with Dr. Newbern’s guidance. I now am a doctorate student at The University of Texas at Austin working in Dr. Darrin Brager and Dr. Dan Johnston’s lab where I am investigating the physiological properties of inhibitory interneurons in the stratum oriens of the hippocampus.
