Profile

I’m a scientist living and working Cork, but I’m originally from the United States.  I grew up in a suburb of New Orleans, Louisiana. Which you may know as the home of Mardi Gras! I went to college in New Orleans, where I studied neuroscience as my major…but I also studied music! I participated in the choir, musical theatre productions, and took music theory classes. I had a bit of a double life in college.

Singing with the choir in Virginia during my PhD

I’ve always tried to balance my career as a scientist with my love of music as a hobby. Even now, I sing with a choir in Cork and I like to make singing videos on my TikTok account. My videos are a mix of “life in the lab”, singing, and some other silly trends.

I also have a pet cat who lives with my parents back in the states. Her name is Daphne and I miss her terribly!

my girl, Daphne

My research focuses on stress and the brain. Stress is a big risk factor for developing mental health issues, like depression and anxiety. And these common mental health issues are twice as common in women compared to men – especially young women. But this difference between males and females only starts after puberty. So we think that there might be something interesting happening during puberty that might lead to women being more susceptible to depression and anxiety.

To understand the biology behind this, I study rats, which are commonly used as a “model organism” in biomedical research because of their anatomical and genetic similarity to humans. I study what’s going on in their brains to change their behaviours.

One of the best parts of being a scientist is being able to control my own schedule.  I get to decide what tasks I want to accomplish each day and set my schedule however I like. So most days I get to work on a few different tasks — Either in the lab doing what we call “wet lab” work (think tubes, cells, solutions, cool machines…mad scientist stuff 👩🏻‍🔬) or spending time at my computer trying to put together the information I got from the experiments (the all-important *data*) and then figuring out what the heck it all means! And then I share what I learned in a way that other people can understand. If it sounds like a lot…it is! But that’s why I have amazing fellow scientists and friends who are with me every step of the way. Sometimes scientists in popular culture are shown as being very solitary, but it’s definitely the opposite!