How/Why Research? After a high school research experience studying how Fetal Alcohol Syndrome affects the rat cerebellum, I wanted to get involved in research as much as possible in college. I found the Frohlich Lab at a Psychology and Neuroscience department event and sent the PI an email detailing my interest in his lab. He contacted me for an interview and then offered me a position. After entering the Nutrition program, I was set up for an interview with the Hursting Lab by the department since research is a requirement for this major. While this was a less traditional way of getting into a lab, I still sent an email detailing my interests along with my resume and had an interview before being offered a position.
Research Experiences: At the Frohlich Lab, I worked on a project testing sustained attention in ferrets using the 5 Choice Serial Reaction Time Task and another project testing the ability of Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation to shift ferrets’ endogenous frequencies. In the Hursting Lab, I treat colon cancer cells with cytokines/adipokines and then examine proliferation, protein expression, and cell signaling pathways. In the fall of 2021, I was a Karen M. Gil Intern through the Psychology and Neuroscience department at RTI International. There, I studied how different cannabinoids affect the CB1 cannabinoid receptor in the central nervous system. During the summer of 2022, I was an intern at the National Institutes of Health in two labs. In one lab, I studied the effects of strobilurin fungicides and HIV drugs on mitochondrial respiration and phagocytosis in microglial cells. In the other, I evaluated the expression of the efflux transporter P-glycoprotein in human cell lines.
Random Fun Fact: I once lived in an apartment complex that had a monkey problem for over a year.