A BIT ABOUT ME

A Neuroscience Postdoctoral Scientist​

I am a Kansas City native (Go Chiefs!!) and a lover of all things that involve dogs and food. I identify as a woman in neuroscience, a first-generation and low-income graduate student, a mom, and an avid adventurer. 

My academic career started at William Jewell College (Liberty, MO) where I received my BA in Biology. During this time, I studied the role of NMNAT2 and Golgi fragmentation on the mechanism of axon degeneration in dorsal root ganglion sensory neurons under the mentorship of Dr. Bhupinder Vohra. 

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Following undergrad, I acquired a job as a research technician for Dr. Pamela Tran at the University of Kansas Medical Center Jared Grantham Kidney Institute (Kansas City, KS). I contributed to many projects to understand how ciliary dysfunction is involved in adipogenesis, musculoskeletal defects, ADPKD, polycystic liver disease, and more. 

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In 2020, my husband, two dogs, and I packed up our bags and headed for Atlanta. Amid a pandemic, I started my Ph.D. journey at Emory University. My dissertation work was focused on understanding microglial-neuronal interactions in the spinal cord following peripheral nerve injury under the mentorship of Dr. Francisco Alvarez and the support of committee members: Dr. Arthur English, Dr. Jill Ward, Dr. Nicholas Varvel, and Dr. Srikant Rangaraju.

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In 2025, we moved to Columbus, where I began investigating neuroimmune interactions following Spinal Cord Injury in Dr. Phil Popovich's lab at The Ohio State University.