During my undergraduate career I served as a research assistant in Timothy Koeltzow's research lab where our goal was to establish a model of PTSD in adolescent rats so that we could study addiction in early ages. After one year, I was promoted to the head research assistant. This role included training incoming students in all behavior procedures and animal care. I was also able to present our findings at the Society for Neuroscience international conference as well as the Midwestern Psychological Association meeting two years consecutively. As an undergraduate researcher, I was awarded at least 3 travel grants every year to attend conferences.

As a tutor for general Chemistry courses, I led individual and group study sessions for undergraduate students.

As my first experience engaging in scientific research, I was trained by senior members of Ken-Ichiro Fukuchi's lab to perform experiments in molecular biology independently. I contributed to literature reviews and experimental protocol planning to facilitate research productivity.