How/Why Research: The opportunity to do research was one of the main reasons I came to UNC; I hope to contribute to developing new approaches to solve some the toughest problems we face! When I first got involved in research, I just knew I wanted to do some kind of biological-related research where I would be doing lots of programming. I browsed through the database on the OUR website and found that the Neural Engineering Lab was looking for undergraduates, so I decided to send an email to the P.I. We met up and he gave me a coding assignment to see where my python skills were, and then I started doing research in his lab!
Research Experience: I worked in the Neural Engineering Lab for the summer of 2020. While there, I helped develop and troubleshoot some of the code they were using to analyze videos of mouse behavior. After that summer, I switched to working in the Won lab because I wanted to do research in genetics. I got in contact with Dr. Won through a graduate student I had met in my the Neural Engineering Lab. In Dr. Won’s lab, I’m working with publicly available datasets to better understand the genetics and neurobiological mechanisms of psychiatric disorders. In the summer of 2021, I’ll be doing an REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) at South Dakota State University, where I’ll be working on the annotation of the genome of a native perennial grass.
Student Organizations/Clubs: Carolina Analytics and Data Science, Club Ultimate Frisbee (B-team).
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Random Fun Fact: I lived in Ecuador from 2018-2020!