Mariela considers herself an Afro-Caribbean/ Afro-Latina. Her family immigrated from the beautiful Dominican Republic, but she was born and raised in the warm island of Puerto Rico. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras (UPRRP) in the field of Cell and Molecular Biology. With the support of the RISE and MARC fellowships, she was a researcher at the Miller Lab, where she initially fell in love with neuroscience upon learning about neuropeptides and neuroparasitology. After graduating from UPRRP, she was very excited to start her Ph.D. at the University of California, San Francisco where she is currently a first-year Neuroscience Ph.D. student. As a graduate student, she is broadly interested in deciphering the neuronal circuits that underlie neuropsychiatric disorders. She is also interested in neurodevelopmental and neuroimmune concepts, like neuronal-glial interactions. In this journey, Mariela also hopes to develop into a mentor who inspires the next generation of scientists.