about me

who i am

I am a behavioral neuroscientist that also happens to be a PhD candidate in the Dartmouth Psychological and Brain Sciences Department working with Dr. Kyle Smith. I am fascinated by how effortlessly we can learn associations between cues and outcomes, and how quickly we can adjust and adapt our actions and responses in our dynamic environment. It’s the basis of how we are able to navigate our noisy, loud world. That’s really something special!

I study the neural transmission within a brain region that is heavily implicated in reward and learning, the nucleus accumbens. I have spent the last few years exploring the dopaminergic and cholinergic mechanisms in this region that underlie different frameworks of motivation and learning using cutting-edge techniques such as pharmacology and fiber photometry. I’ve also dabbled in optogenetics and electrophysiology during my graduate endeavors.

However, behavior is my real bread and butter, and from my biased perspective, where the real magic happens. I combine microcircuit dissections with deep and detailed analysis of behavior (specifically, Pavlovian conditioned approach in the form of sign-tracking) in an effort to understand how fine behavioral structures can flexibly adjust when new information is learned, and what brain mechanisms might be attributed to this ability. I recently developed some novel measures for studying motivated behaviors in animals with greater detail and in multiple dimensions. I’m aiming to capture individual differences and natural variation in both behavior and neural transmission. Studying what animals are really doing (i.e., gnawing and grabbing), rather than just observing the behavior’s side effect (i.e., a lever press), has the potential to unlock new discoveries about the brain as well as elucidate contradictory evidence we might already have. I hope that my work can inspire others to study behavior on a more meaningful level.

Besides science, I’m a huge foodie and I enjoy cooking elaborate meals that I can pair a nice wine with (I took a wine tasting and geography course in another life). I also love to find new and exciting restaurants, but tend to be a very stubborn creature of habit (research is me-search, right?) so I have some difficulty going anywhere other than the 3 places I adore. I love to read books with unreliable narrators (follow me on StoryGraph!). I’m a novice potter and crocheter, and a wannabe vinyl collector and audiophile. I play five instruments, but my favorite is the flute. I am also a retired barre and pilates instructor, so I’m always on the hunt for a fun fitness class.

who i was

I’m originally from the DC metropolitan area, and went to Virginia Tech (go Hokies!) for my 2 bachelor’s degrees in Cognitive & Behavioral Neuroscience and Psychology. I graduated in 2020. I was a part of Dr. Daniel English’s lab, working on hippocampal microcircuits, place cell tuning, and spatial navigation using optogenetics and in vivo electrophysiology. I had a brief stint in neurogenetics and ultrasonic vocalizations in Dr. J. Michael Bowers’ lab, as well as autism in nonverbal children with Dr. Angela Scarpa.