I graduated in 2011 from SUNY Binghamton University with a Bachelor of Science in Cellular and Molecular Biology as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Music. During this time, I completed an undergraduate honors thesis in the laboratory of Dr. Karin Sauer and discovered my passion for scientific research.

I then earned my PhD in Biophysics from SUNY University at Buffalo in the laboratory of Dr. Gabriela Popescu in 2016. My NRSA F31 funded work was focused on deciphering the single-channel gating kinetics and physiological role of a peculiar class of NMDA- and glutamate-insensitive excitatory glycinergic NMDA receptors. In addition to numerous invited talks, awards, and published manuscripts, I was awarded the Outstanding Neuroscience Dissertation Award.

In May 2016, I began my postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Roger Clem in the Department of Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. My NRSA F32 funded research centered on dissecting prefrontal microcircuits related to fear learning. Importantly, this work identified a specific interneuron population responsible for encoding fear memory in mice. In my current work, which is funded by the 2020 Robin Chemers Neustein Award, I am using several approaches to understand the mechanisms by which distinct interneuron populations encode diverse memories. I was invited to share my research in platform presentations in numerous prestigious forums, including the CSHL Neural Circuits meeting, the Society for Neuroscience, and the Austin Center for Learning and Memory meeting. I was additionally invited to present for the Yale SYNAPSES program in 2019 as well as NYU SPiNES in 2021.

In September 2019, I won a NIH BRAIN Initiative K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award. Research proposed in this application is centered on unraveling the circuit mechanisms underlying memory encoding in the medial prefrontal cortex of mice. To do this, I will continue to employ a multi-dimensional approach in my research by combining viral and genetic techniques in transgenic mice, ex vivo whole-cell electrophysiological recordings in brain slices, in vivo optogenetic manipulations, and real-time in vivo calcium imaging techniques including fiber photometry and miniature head-mounted microscopes (Miniscopes).