Education:

University of California, Santa Barbara (BS in Biopsychology)

University of Southern California (Ph.D. in Neuroscience

My broad interests in neuroscience is in understanding neural pathways and mechanisms underlying motivated behaviors that govern our day-to-day lives. In particular, my passion and foundation for neuroscience research were established during my PhD training under the mentorship of Dr. Scott Kanoski at the University of Southern California. There I studied the neurobiological systems that regulate feeding behaviors, with a special emphasis on the obesity epidemic and behaviors that mediate excessive food intake. Using a combination of neuroanatomical, chemogenetic, neuropharmacological, and behavioral approaches, my work focused on uncovering the mechanisms underlying the learned aspects of feeding behaviors by examining the integration of feeding peptides (e.g. GLP-1, ghrelin) with hippocampal neural processes. Upon entering Mitch Roitman’s laboratory as a Post-Doctoral researcher, I continue to study the interaction between a variety of feeding-related peptides and neural substrates that modulate learning and memory, reward, and motivation using electrophysiology, fast-scan cyclic voltammetry, and fiber photometry. During my free time, I like skateboarding, playing music, and eating!