Kaeli is a rising second-year PhD student in the Helen Wills Neuroscience Program at the University of California, Berkeley. She graduated from Tulane University of Louisiana with a B.S. in Neuroscience and departmental honors in 2018, after having completed her senior thesis on experience-dependent structural plasticity in aging. During both her undergraduate and postbaccalaureate studies, Kaeli also pursued research at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience on the functional architecture and development of circuits within the visual system. She is currently investigating the role of lateral inhibition in complex tuning in the rodent somatosensory system, but is generally interested in cortical network dynamics and sensory systems. Kaeli is the first person in her family to pursue a graduate education. During her time as an undergraduate student and beyond, she received generous supportive mentorship that she hopes to pay forward by providing mentorship to underrepresented and first-generation students seeking to navigate higher education. Outside of the realm of science, Kaeli likes to read, spend time outdoors, and wrangle with her easel to paint the perfect cat.