Student Profiles

Rachel’s passion for computational neuroscience research began as an undergraduate at the College of William & Mary, where she engaged in both wet and dry lab research. She was awarded two fellowships to work with Dr. Lisa Landino, whose biochemistry research investigates the role of oxidative damage to proteins in neurodegeneration. After three years, Rachel’s work culminated in her honors thesis. In addition to this research, she worked in Dr. Greg Conradi-Smith’s computational biology lab to study neural networks involved in breathing. During this time, Rachel became excited about the power of using computational methods to address questions that are ethically or technically constrained in wet labs. As an undergraduate student, she spent her summers in Morocco and Palestine learning Arabic, teaching English, and interning at a women’s empowerment agency. These experiences heightened her desire to work with scientists from communities that are historically underrepresented in Western science to address issues that disproportionately affect those populations. In 2019, Rachel graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a B.S. in neuroscience and a minor (and dual passion) in Arabic language and literature.

Upon completing her undergraduate education, Rachel joined the vascular physiology lab of Dr. Hans Ackerman as a post-baccalaureate fellow at the Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research at the NIH. Throughout her two years in the lab, Rachel engaged in a diverse set of research projects using a wide variety of methodologies, ranging from time-resolved fluorescence and immunological techniques at the bench to transcriptomic and time series signal analyses on the computer. During the 2020 pandemic, she contributed to her lab’s COVID-19 research project. With Dr. Ackerman’s support, her work resulted in several first- and co-authored publications, as well as numerous posters and invited talks. During this time, Rachel also earned a certificate in data science through Johns Hopkins University.

As an NIH-Cambridge Scholar, Rachel plans to use transcriptomics and neuroimaging to study the role of early life stress and trauma in increasing vulnerability to psychiatric disorders in adulthood. After graduation, she hopes to focus her research on the psychiatric impact of the chronic trauma experienced by oppressed peoples. Outside of lab, Rachel is a competitive ultramarathon runner who enjoys lifting, being outdoors, and spending time with dogs.