I graduated with my Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a concentration in Cognitive Neuroscience from UIUC in May of 2020. My academic studies also included minors in Molecular & Cellular Biology and Leadership Studies as well as the Certificate in Neuroscience through MCB. I initially went into school thinking I wanted to be pre-med to become a neurologist, but quickly decided that medical school wasn’t what I wanted to do. Instead, I crafted my college plan to best fit what I was most interested in. I worked as an undergraduate research assistant for 3 years in Dr. Alison Bell’s lab studying the neuroscience of behavior in threespined stickleback fish. I primarily worked on projects studying how various levels of parental care affected the gene expression and behavior of future generations of sticklebacks.
Upon graduation, I worked at ADM Research as a lab tech for the Enzyme Lab, part of the Process Chemistry and Catalysis group. I used many of my skills from my MCB lab courses almost daily, specifically the Bradford assay and SDS-PAGE for protein analysis. After some time in the lab, I decided to enter the field of child welfare as a caseworker for youth who are in the foster care system. This role involved working with families to reunite children with their parents or find youth a permanent home, depending on the best interest of the child. This role really put the research I did on campus on parental care in a whole new light.
I believe the college experience is about so much more than what happens in the classroom. My spring semester of sophomore year was spent at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, Spain, as part of a study abroad. Additionally, I was involved in Student Alumni Ambassadors, a student organization that fosters relationships between Illinois students, alumni, staff, and faculty. In SAA, we engaged students beginning at Illinois Sights & Sounds during Welcome Week through their graduation and beyond.
This may seem like a roundabout way to end up right back where I started, but I feel I am now in a position that combines my favorite aspects of everything I have previously done into one role: the biological side of my lab tech experience, the advising and plan development skills from my caseworker position, and the working with bright students in MCB which I experienced during my own undergraduate career. I am happy to be here to help each student find their own path through college, tailor their experience to their interests and strengths, and ultimately achieve their dreams.