BD² is a collective force transforming what we know about and how we treat bipolar disorder. It’s a commitment to the 40 million people living with bipolar disorder, those not yet diagnosed, and their loved ones. I have played a lead role in building the foundation for BD², cultivating productive collaborations and co-authoring multiple publications on bipolar disorder.

In my role at the Milken Institute's Center for Strategic Philanthropy, I use my expertise in scientific research, neuroscience, science policy, and advocacy to advise philanthropic partners on opportunities to make the biggest impact in various fields of science and health.

Project Bridge is a student organization at Johns Hopkins focusing on science outreach, making science research more accessible to the public. We aim to connect science to the community and to foster public interest and science research. Project Bridge holds Science Communication workshops to give scientists tools to communicate with the public. We also organize many public outreach events, such as Baltimore Science Cafes and Farmer's Market science demo booths. Check us out at www.projbridge.com.

At ASBMB, I established and managed the Advocacy Training Program, a six-month externship training science advocates to pursue policies benefiting the research enterprise at the local level. I developed advocacy strategies and policy statements that represent ASBMB views and stances, planned and executed Capitol Hill briefings to educate Hill staff on issues such as science funding, met with Congressional offices and science agencies to advance relevant legislation and policies. I also organized webinars and carry out social media efforts for a variety of advocacy grassroots campaigns that encourage ASBMB members to advocate to their representatives. I managed activities of the Public Affairs Advisory Committee, the governing and advisory committee of the public affairs department, and communicated advocacy strategies by writing for the science policy blog and magazine, ASBMB Today.

I finished a 5-month science policy fellowship at Research!America immediately after receiving my Ph.D. While I had some grassroots experience in graduate school, this fellowship was an invaluable course in the vast field of science policy and advocacy. In this fellowship, I attended briefings, hearings, and relevant events around the Capitol, representing Research!America while keep tabs on pertinent activities in science policy. Using my science background, I worked on internal and external documents such as one-pagers regarding science-related issues that were provided to policymakers and other key stakeholders. I also expanded my network and understanding of what it means to be an effective advocate for the science community.

I studied the post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression in dendrites and spines of neurons. Using a variety of techniques from Western blots to live cell imaging, I elucidated the role of how certain genes play a role in learning and memory.

Eat and Advocate is an event bringing together Hopkins students and postdocs to advocate for their science research to congressional representatives. By hosting the event at Hopkins, and providing breakfast, we provide tools necessary to tweet, email, and call their representatives and demonstrate the ease of advocacy. We are looking to replicate and repeat this event nationwide.

I explored the role of the Reelin pathway in development of spinal cord layers using knockout mice and immunohistochemistry. I am also an author on a spinal cord lesion study, elucidating the therapeutic role of olfactory ensheathing cells injection in repair of completely transected spinal cords in rats.

Under the guidance of graduate student Moriel Zelikowsky, I investigated the role of the hippocampus and the amygdala in classical fear conditioning. I am the second author on a study analyzing fear renewal, a Pavlovian phenomenon in which the training context elicits fear after extinction of a non-contextual conditioned stimulus, like a noise.

I was responsible for general lab maintenance duties, including animal colony maintenance. Under the supervision of Dr. Sanaz Mermazadeh, I learned various lab tasks such as genotyping, animal injections, and maxi preps.