About the Author

Hello!

My name is Kylie Foutch! I am currently a third-year undergraduate student pursuing a Bachelor's degree in neuroscience, with minors in philosophy and biology at Santa Clara University. In addition to my courses, I am also a goalkeeper on the Santa Clara Women's Soccer team.

A career in neuroscience research has been my ultimate goal since my senior year of high school. As a broad scope, my research interests lie within neurodegeneration. More specifically, I am very interested in amyloidosis, the amyloid cascade hypothesis, and delineating the true function of amyloid plaques in the brain. I am also very interested in the relationship between β-amyloid and tau oligomers, tauopathies, and the functional differences between high and low molecular weight tau. A career in advanced research relating to these topics is where I would love to end up. 

I have thoroughly enjoyed conducting research on these topics presented in this project. The libraries of data and different experimental methods I have come across have only fed my interest in this field. A significant amount of time developing this project was spent reading and analyzing figures from various papers, as there is an overwhelming amount of information on various related subtopics. As a point of reflection, there were times during the quarter I strayed from my ideal project timeline due to paper deadlines in other classes. However, I made it a point to maintain constant progress on the project week to week.

I am very eager to become a part of the field that changes the ways of medicine. I hope that this "Neurotopic Project" has highlighted my interests, my desire to learn, and my love for what I am learning, as these faculties will continue to prepare me for the rigors of a research career.