Laura is a PhD student in the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. She has not yet chosen a lab for her dissertation research but is interested in the neurobiological underpinnings of mental illnesses. She earned her BA in Neuroscience from Pomona College, where her senior thesis research investigated testosterone’s mechanism of action in the nervous system. During undergraduate summers, she was funded to pursue research projects at Pomona College and at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. After completing her BA she worked as a research assistant at Princeton University for one year, studying the neural circuitry underlying reward-based decision-making behavior. Laura is the first person in her family to earn a college degree in the U.S. and the first to pursue graduate education overall. During her time as an undergraduate student and as a research assistant she benefitted from excellent mentors who taught her about graduate school and guided her through the application process. She is thus passionate about helping others navigate this highly confusing landscape. Outside of science, she likes to spend time outdoors and play the piano. Her biggest non-science goal is to adopt a dog very soon.