Biography

Behind every brain MRI is a person with a unique set of traits, but accessing which brain features contribute to one’s behavior, in health and disorder, is an ongoing challenge. Curious about this, in high school I began developing neuroimaging methods, examining large publicly available fMRI datasets. As an undergraduate at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, the potential of using mathematics to advance brain mapping within these datasets captivated me. I trained with the Geisinger-Bucknell Autism and Developmental Medicine Institute, learning how graph theory methods can help understand patterns of brain folding and function that relate to psychiatric and neurodevelopmental conditions. Working with labs at the NIH, the University of Miami, and Forschungszentrum Julich exposed me to a variety of imaging methods that can further capture the intricacies of the human brain. In my doctoral studies in psychiatry at Cambridge, I will work in Prof. Ed Bullmore’s lab to study infant and adolescent development, combining graph theory analyses of brain folding and brain networks. I hope to contribute to the growing field of precision medicine, advancing treatments for disorders based on markers in the brain.