Natalie is a German transplant working as a PostDoc at the National Institutes of Heath in Bethesda MD. She is studying Parkinson’s disease, specifically how this neurodegenerative disease starts and what can be done to stop disease progression. Natalie obtained her MSc in Biochemistry at the Mannheim University of Applied Sciences in Germany and her PhD in Neuroscience from the Lund University in Sweden. In 2017, she moved to DC to continue her work on neurodegenerative diseases with Dr. Mark Cookson. Natalie has been conducting research since 2005 and wants to open her own laboratory in the US sometime in the near future. She is passionate about making careers in science accessible to all, regardless of socioeconomic background, and she is excited to share her knowledge about navigating the graduate school application process. Natalie can usually be seen with a cup of tea in her hand and in her free time likes to hike / camp, sculpt, read books and lovingly tend to her growing collection of houseplants. Her twitter handle is @NLandeck.