Team

How I got into science

Originally from Georgia, I come from a family of all very opinionated, naturally inquisitive, and science-oriented people. My mother, the most animated and opinionated of us all, started her own veterinary practice in 1991. Consequently, my day care and after school activities for the majority of my life took place in her clinic, where, as a very curious child, I was able to explore and observe (with minimal supervision…yikes) the surgeries, ultrasounds, grooming, vaccinations, and day-to-day activities of an animal hospital. I quickly fell in love with science and wanted to partake in as many activities as my mother would let me. My mother loves to tell the story, of finding me at the ripe age of four doing “surgery” on one of my stuffed animals. I had gathered all the necessary equipment: forceps, scissors, towels and was inserting the TrekTube into my unlucky patient when my mother, shocked, stumbled upon me. From there my interests in science of the body and mind only grew.

During my junior year of high school, amidst stressing about which colleges to apply to and what to major in etc. I stumbled upon an area of science that in a sense changed my life. I was taking an AP psychology course and one particular week was completely devoted to the function of the different areas of brain, the various types of neurotransmitters and how action potentials are conducted and propagated down axons. Immediately I fell in love with how complex, diverse, and unknown the brain was. From then on, despite being a naturally-indecisive person, I never questioned what I wanted to devote my life to studying or my genuine passion for Neuroscience.

Now in my second year at BU, I’m extremely excited to be a part of such a passionate and intelligent team. Research is both a humbling and rewarding process that I refuse to take for granted. I remembered the audible gasp that escaped when I was first introduced to the power of scientific techniques of Optogenetics, genetic engineering, immunohistochemistry, and functional imaging in my first Neuro class at BU. From here my future in medicine, research, or a combination of both is still being decided, but my specific interests in neurodegenderation and psychiatric disorders only continue to grow.