Jessica is an intern at the Srivastava Lab at Gladstone Institutes and student at CCSF's biotech program. Prior to this, she has a Bachelor’s degree in Medicine. 

At her internship, she investigated if specific neurons are part of the phrenic network which control the diaphragm in order to better understand the potential of spinal interneurons for treating spinal cord injury. To do this, she employed iPS cell maintenance and differentiation, PACT tissue clearing, immunofluorescence labeling, and light-sheet 3D imaging, to label and image cells and tissues of interest. She also utilized FIJI(ImageJ), ZEN, and Imaris imaging software tools to analyze these labeled cells and tissues. This helped to build a 3D model to visualize and easily identify which neurons belong to the circuit. Through the internship she was able to be part of streamlining a highly complex large-scale data analysis process which has the potential to aid other scientists investigating the nervous system worldwide. 

Being at Gladstone Institutes has fueled Jessica's drive to continue her engagement in science and work on future projects. After the internship, she’s planning to have a 10-month CIRM internship and then going to graduate school. At CCSF she was a chemistry tutor and a cell culture lab aide. In her spare time, Jessica enjoys leathercrafting and cooking.