I earned my BS degree from Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. I then worked at NIMH in the CBDB with Dr. Barbara Lipska on a rodent model of Schizophrenia as a pre-doctoral IRTA. I obtained both my master's degree and PhD from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in Developmental, Cellular, and Molecular Biology with Dr. Mariann Blum and Dr. James L. Roberts. I completed my post-doctoral training with Dr. Christine Schmidt at the University of Texas at Austin, examining natural-based polymers for central nervous system applications. I then moved to the University of Washington in Seattle and joined Dr. Christoph Hofstetter's lab as a junior faculty member in the Department of Neurosurgery. I was promoted to Associate Professor at UW in 2024. I joined the University of Louisville as a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Anatomical Sciences and Neurobiology and a member of the Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center in June of 2025.