I am an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition at the University of Washington and a member of the UW Diabetes Institute. Before starting my lab, I earned my PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Washington in the lab of Richard Palmiter, where I studied how parabrachial and central amygdala circuits coordinate behavioral and physiological responses to aversive stimuli, including both learned and innate threats.

I stayed at UW for my postdoctoral training in Nicholas Steinmetz’s lab, where I studied how brain-wide circuits integrate multi-timescale information during ingestive behavior. During my postdoc I was awarded the Hanna Gray Fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which supported my postdoctoral work and continues to fund my independent lab.

The projects in the lab today are shaped by these experiences: the hypothesis-driven experimental mindset instilled by my graduate mentors, the analytical and open-science perspective I developed during my postdoc, and the translational focus of my colleagues at the UW Diabetes Institute.

Outside the lab, I enjoy growing and eating tomatoes, reading, swimming, hiking, listening to sea lions, and walking through Seattle neighborhoods.