Timeline

Education

Medical Scientist Training Program Fellow

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Pittsburgh, PA

M.D. expected 2027. Clerkship grades: Honors — Internal Medicine, Surgery, Psychiatry; High Pass — Neurology, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Pediatrics.

Publication

Aberrant Cerebellar-Recipient Thalamic Activity in Two Mouse Models with Prominent Tremor or Bradykinesia

The Journal of Neuroscience

Education

Ph.D. in Systems Neuroscience

Carnegie Mellon University

Pittsburgh, PA

Thesis: Characterizing network-specific pathophysiology to guide targeted therapeutic interventions for motor recovery in parkinsonian motor syndromes.

Research Experience

Graduate Student Researcher, Advisor: Aryn Gittis

Gittis Lab for Neural Basis of Motor Control, Carnegie Mellon University

Pittsburgh, PA

• ·Developed an in-vivo model of electrical stimulation in mice with bilateral dopamine depletion
• ·Utilized optogenetically-inspired cell-type modulation to identify patterns and targets of electrical deep brain stimulation (DBS) to enhance motor recovery in Parkinson's disease (PD)
• ·Investigated the neural activity in the thalamus of two models of PD pathology that show either tremor or bradykinesia

Doctoral Thesis

Characterizing network-specific pathophysiology to guide targeted therapeutic interventions for motor recovery in parkinsonian motor syndromes

Carnegie Mellon University

Talk

Circuit-inspired strategies to improve treatments for Parkinson's disease

NANS Neural Interfaces

Washington, DC

Honors & Awards

NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke F31 NRSA

Carnegie Mellon University

Publication

Pilot study of acute behavioral effects of pallidal burst stimulation in Parkinson's disease

Movement Disorders

Leadership Experience

Student Committee Chair

Medical Scientist Training Program

• ·Served as a liaison between MSTP students and administration to enhance student experiences in the program
• ·Coordinated with all student committees to facilitate execution of most MSTP activities and events

Poster

Cell-type Specific Neuromodulation Using Burst DBS Produces Long-lasting Behavioral in a Parkinsonian Mouse Model

Lake Conference Sensation and Action

Thun, Switzerland

Poster

Characterization of behavioral impairments and effects of DBS in the 3K tremor mouse model

Society for Neuroscience

Washington, DC

Leadership Experience

Retreat Chair, Mentorship Committee

Medical Scientist Training Program

• ·Organized the annual retreat, including finding keynote speakers, hosting a scientific symposium with student talks and poster sessions, and planning activities that foster mentorship and professional development
• ·Organized social events within the program to facilitate integration across MSTP classes

Publication

Executive function network's white matter alterations relate to Parkinson's disease motor phenotype

Neuroscience Letters

Publication

Population-specific neuromodulation prolongs therapeutic benefits of deep brain stimulation

Science

Poster

Burst DBS induces persistent motor rescue in parkinsonian mice

Society for Neuroscience

Virtual

Research Experience

Summer Rotation Student

Turner Lab for Basal-Ganglia Disorders, University of Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh, PA

• ·Collected single-unit neural recording data from the subthalamic nucleus of a parkinsonian non-human primate
• ·Applied spike-field analysis to analyze the movement-related coherence between GPi and thalamic LFP activity in simultaneous neural recordings

Research Experience

Postbaccalaureate Intramural Research Training Award Fellow

National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, NIH

Bethesda, MD

• ·Analyzed diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in patients with PD to understand the white matter correlates of the cognitive side effects of DBS
• ·Developed a tractography-based predictor for side effect profile of various stimulation parameters

Poster

Mechanisms of neural communication in the basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuit in a parkinsonian monkey

Medical Scientist Training Program Retreat

Pittsburgh, PA

Education

B.S. in Neuroscience, summa cum laude

University of California, Los Angeles

Los Angeles, CA

Overall GPA: 3.94/4.00.

Research Experience

Research Assistant

Staba Lab for Epilepsy, UCLA

Los Angeles, CA

• ·Developed an automated seizure detection algorithm in MATLAB for EEG data from post-traumatic rats
• ·Validated automated detection of seizure spread activity across multiple depth electrodes

Honors & Awards

B.S. Neuroscience, Highest Departmental Honors

University of California, Los Angeles

Honors & Awards

Vice Provost Prize for Research Article in Undergraduate Science Journal

University of California, Los Angeles

Honors & Awards

Dean's Honors List

University of California, Los Angeles

Research Experience

Summer Research Intern

Blanke Lab of Cognitive Neuroscience, EPFL

Lausanne, Switzerland

• ·Investigated multisensory metacognition by comparing judgement in visual and auditory behavioral tasks
• ·Collected EEG, ECG, and behavioral data, analyzed in MATLAB and R to estimate metacognitive performance

Research Experience

Research Assistant

O'Neill Lab for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, UCLA

Los Angeles, CA

• ·Collected EEG data from subjects diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder, processed using Independent Component analysis and Dipole Source Localization