I am a current Outreach and Education Fellow with the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM), at the University of California, Irvine. I am contributing to content development, implementation, and evaluation of the NIH-SEPA funded Brain Explorer Academy 2.0. The goals of this project are to provide community centered neuroscience outreach to high school sophomores in Santa Ana California, following students to senior year, and evaluating Competency Development, Knowledge Attitudes and Practices, and Workforce Capacity Building. In addition, a collection of bilingual English/Spanish digital resources will be created and used to generate a “program-in-a-box.” 

I am passionate about Pedagogy and Neuro-Outreach and at UCI through the CNLM I served as co-chair of the Brain Explorers Academy, a free 8-week Saturday program geared at teaching elementary and middle schoolers about the brain. I also co-designed and co-lead UCI's Brain Camp, a 2-week summer camp for middle and high schoolers. These experiences, as well as what I have learned as a Pedagogical Fellow at UCI, have fundamentally influenced my passion for outreach and teaching, where I believe the classroom should be fun and engaging for students and science should be accessible to all.

As a graduate student, my scientific research primarily focused on studying the role of microglia, the innate immune cell of the brain, in Alzheimer’s Disease, with a special focus on the role of uniquely human genetics. To conduct this research, I collaborated with another graduate student in my lab to create a chimeric microglia model, where in human induced pluripotent stem cell derived microglia are engrafted into the mouse brain to mature along with the developing pathologies where they can be studied in a variety of different ways including single cell and bulk RNA sequencing, 2-Photon microscopy, and immunohistochemistry.

More personally, I proudly identify as a Bisexual Disabled Woman in STEM, as a Type 1 Diabetic I advocate for Disability and Diversity in STEM and beyond. See Brush Stokes and Breathless for more on my art and advocacy and click here see a video of Representative Katie Porter wearing a pair of earrings I made from Insulin vials, she is one of many progressive female US Senators and House Representatives that I have shipped of insulin vial earrings in order to bring attention to the price gouging crisis insulin is having in the US. More disability advocacy can be found on my Twitter feed and you can listen to a discussion I had about my STEM and diabetes journey with Dr. Asma Bashir on her lovely podcast, "Her Royal Science" here.

Outside of lab, I find deep joy in being creative and active in a variety of ways (especially digital illustration and acrylic paints), hiking, and climbing. I use art as both an outlet and a tool to help me or my colleagues communicate our science to the greater world. Melding together art and science has always been a cornerstone of making the complexity of the natural world accessible to others, from Ramón y Cajal to Greg Dunn, The field of neuroscience has benefitted tremendously from this endeavor. I do commissions on a limited basis but feel free to contact me through Twitter to make a request.