I am a biological anthropologist, evolutionary neuroscientist, & computational biologist.

 

In my work, I integrate these disciplines to ask and answer big questions that are central to our understanding of primate and, in particular, human brain evolution. These questions are wide in scope, and span both the proximate and ultimate mechanisms. For example:

• Which selective pressures led some primate species, including humans, to evolve relatively large brains?
• How and why do the brains of individuals of the same species differ (e.g., how are brains affected by age, sex, sociality, etc.)?
• What kinds of genetic, epigenetic, and transcriptomic changes led to these inter- and intra-specific differences?
• How do human brain sex differences contribute to sex-biases in the prevalence/presentation of certain neurological and psychiatric conditions?

I combine phylogenetic comparative methods, neuroimaging, ‘omics’, and bioinformatics to create a multidisciplinary approach that enables me to attack these types of questions with sophistication and rigor. This is the approach I took in my NSF-funded (GRFP, DDRIG) dissertation project – Variation in neuroanatomy and gene expression in primate brains. I am now at the NIMH working to characterize normative sex differences in brain cell-type specific gene expression patterns across the human brain.

 

I am thankful for every day spent learning something new. Leaving Wall Street was the best decision I've ever made.

 

Check out what my current lab and my PhD lab are up to!!