Welcome!

I'm a graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in Neuroscience in Michael Silver's lab at the UC Berkeley and Robin Carhart Harris's lab at UC San Francisco. I am supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF-GRFP) as well as fellowships from UC Berkeley.

I earned my B.S. in Neuroscience and subsequently worked as a Postbaccalaureate Research Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, where I investigated the neural circuits underlying waking arousal. My current research focuses on the effects of psychedelics on cognitive states and behavior.

I am dedicated to utilizing my research, teaching, and leadership experiences to make meaningful contributions to neuroscience research and promote equity within academia. Read about some of my life here. A glimpse of my previous research experience is explained below, with additional details here

• Cognition and Behavior: My passion for understanding the brain led me to join Dr. Le Dantec’s lab, where I explored various aspects of human cognition, including learning, working memory, time perception, and emotional processing. The lab focuses on two key aspects of adaptation using complementary behavioral and electroencephalographic (EEG) approaches. The first investigates our ability to process temporal information—a skill essential for a wide range of human activities, from motor coordination to language. The second examines how neural plasticity supports the development of specialized skills, such as interpreting medical imaging (e.g., CT scans) or becoming an expert in complex tasks like video games.

• Physiology: Simultaneously, I explored animal models in research by joining a marine invertebrate physiology lab under the guidance of Dr. Lloyd Trueblood. In the lab, I studied the effects of ocean acidification on octopus, salps, and crabs, with a particular focus on understanding how Octopus developed efficient oxygen transport in environments across varying pH levels. We characterized the impact of Short- and Long-Term Exposure to Elevated Seawater Pco2 on Metabolic Rate and Hypoxia Tolerance throughout the Salish Sea and were the first to record metabolic rates at varying pCO2 levels in various deep-water species. Our research garnered attracted international attention and has been published with ongoing work in progress.

• Behavioral Neurogenetics: After my senior year, I was accepted as a post-bac research fellow at the National Institutes of Health (NICHD), working in Dr. Harold Burgess's lab. I studied the behavioral neurogenetics of autism and schizophrenia, focusing on structural brain differences and neuromodulators linked to waking arousal. I used targeted ablation methods to investigate how specific brain regions contribute to arousal and startle responses, aiming to understand how internal brain mechanisms shape fixed behavioral reactions to external stimuli.