Thank you for visiting my professional website! I am a physician scientist currently completing a Transitional Year at Northwell Health. I am interested in utilizing multi-disciplinary teams in order to conduct truly translational research. In particular, I am interested in how we can better diagnose and treat neurological and psychiatric disorders by using bench-to-bedside methods.
After completing my doctoral work, I was awarded a post-doctoral Fulbright grant to conduct research at the Zürich Center for Neuroeconomics in the lab of Dr. Philippe Tobler. For this work, I studied adaptive coding in both visual and reward tasks, across the schizophrenia spectrum, with an eye towards developing behavioral and neuroimaging biomarkers and novel treatment targets for psychiatric disorders in future studies.
I pursued my graduate training in the Rutgers University –Robert Wood Johnson Medical School-Princeton University Physician-Scientist Program. I completed my PhD in Neuroscience in the lab of Dr. Janet Alder and Dr. Smita Thakker-Varia at Rutgers University, in collaboration with Dr. David Schreiber of the Biomedical Engineering Department. Here, I studied traumatic brain injury (TBI), developing a project where I evaluated the effect of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in two different genes on outcomes after repeated mild TBI in a mouse model. After identifying those specific genetic SNPs that conferred risk for worse morphological and behavioral outcomes after TBI, I developed precision medicine approaches to treatment.
I completed my Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry at Bryn Mawr College, where I worked in the synthetic organic chemistry lab of Dr. William Malachowski. Here, I utilized computer modeling and rational drug design to create molecules within two different structural classes that inhibit indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO). Importantly, IDO inhibitors have been shown to slow the progress of cancer in conjunction with chemotherapy.
I am always looking forward to new opportunities where I am challenged to solve complex problems, work with diverse teams, and contribute to advancing medical science.
Sources for Images:
https://www.rcsb.org/structure/6e45
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9083178/pdf/NRR-17-2166.pdf