Professional Background

Research Focus: Behavioral model of migraine and neuropeptide influence on pathogenesis

Infectious Disease Internal Medicine, Providence Health and Services, Portland Oregon, 2014 - Current

Residency, Oregan Health & Science University 2012 - 2013

Raised as a wayward Jayhawk in Spokane, Washington, I was bound to eventually return to my familial home. The homecoming did take a little longer than expected. I first journeyed to the east coast to complete a double major at Yale University with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and Studies in the Environment. After a brief sojourn in the world of high finance I enrolled at the University of Washington in Seattle and completed a M.S. in Bioengineering. Now I live a short bike ride from KU Medical Center and am completing medical school coursework during my second year in the MD/PhD program. I am so pleased with the level of personal attention and support that I have received from the program here at KU.

My passion for research has taken me through diverse scientific fields and places around the world. I entered the lab for the first time in college to research zinc binding by the fungus aspergillus at the Universidad de Salamanca in Spain. My undergraduate senior thesis involved developing a micro-fabricated electrode sensor for brain implantation with the Department of Neurosurgery at the Yale University School of Medicine. After college I conducted field research with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria and the Republic of Benin in West Africa. Eventually, I started graduate school in Bioengineering. My work there involved developing micro- and nano- fluidic devices to perform single cell electrophysiological experiments and create chemical gradients. I used these devices to study neutrophil chemotaxis, synaptogenesis, and inward rectifying potassium currents in immortalized human cell lines.

Mentor:  Nancy E Berman, Ph.D., Anatomy and Cellular Biology, and Ken McCarson Ph.D., Pharmacology, Toxicology & Therapeutics