I grew up in (a suburb outside of) Reading, PA, home of the Reading Railroad and Unique pretzels (if you haven’t had them, you must). Raised by a licensed mental health therapist and a chemist, I’ve always approached life very analytically, and my career in science is no exception.

I love problem solving and learning and overanalyzing behavior, so even though I hated high school biology and started at Lafayette College as an engineering major, within the first year I realized neuroscience was my place. I was chosen for a dream opportunity to initiate a human brain-computer interface and fell in love with the idea of combining wet-lab experimental and computational methods in my research.

I started my PhD in Neuroscience in Pittsburgh immediately after finishing my BS in Neuroscience. I was co-mentored by faculty at University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, studying how basal ganglia brain circuits in mice can contribute to behavior in healthy, Parkinsonian model, and compulsive behavior mice. I defended my PhD in 2019 and quickly started a post-doctoral position at Princeton University. Then 2020 happened, an apartment fire happened, several moves happened, and my plans changed.

In 2022 I shifted gears on my career and my life. After months (years, really) of soul searching I decided my goals were different than they used to be. I pulled the plug on my long-time ambition to run my own lab and started to explore other ways to be a scientist.

I considered a few different options before landing my current role at NDRI/National Disease Research Interchange. As Director of Scientific Services at NDRI, I get to support research scientists all over the world, learn and problem solve every day, and work with a really great team. Throughout the process I’ve learned a lot about figuring out what success looks like for me and about different ways to be a scientist. I’m passionate about research and science in a different, and much healthier, way than I used to be, and I love talking to other curious people trying to figure out their place in the broad world of science.