After graduating from college, I travelled to the Amazon Rainforest to study the sensory neuroscience of weakly electric fish and ever since I have been fascinated by the intricacy of the nervous system, and particularly by the transmission of information through electrical signals. Before entering graduate school, I spent two years as a technician at Columbia University tracing the fate lineage potential of hippocampal neural stem cells. This experience in New York ignited my interest in the genetic underpinnings of neuronal identity specification. At Washington University in St. Louis, I conducted my thesis in the lab of Dr. Andrew Yoo on the induction of neurogenesis in non-neuronal cells. This work has led to the development of a novel cellular reprogramming approach to study Huntington's disease, a progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disease that remains untreatable. As a Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Dr. Li-Huei Tsai at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, I employ patient-derived stem cells and single-cell transcriptional approaches to investigate genetic and cellular mechanisms of innate immunity in Alzheimer’s disease. I am currently seeking a position as an independent investigator, to leverage my scientific background and launch a vibrant and inclusive research program that aims to elucidate neuronal activity-dependent mechanisms that regulate glial states and cell fates.