I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Biology at Johns Hopkins University.  I was trained as a yeast molecular biologist and geneticist. As a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Kyle Cunningham, I discovered a novel family of proteins conserved from yeast to humans that regulates the protein phosphatase calcineurin. One of the human homologs, DSCR1, is located on Chromosome 21, the chromosome triplicated in Down Syndrome patients. I therefore decided to undertake a second postdoctoral fellowship to learn neurobiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine with Dr. Bruce Krueger.  In 2006, I was named a BIRCWH Scholar by the Maryland’s Organized Research Effort in Women’s Health and was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology.  Research in my laboratory is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Defense.