Although my parents are both scientists, I didn’t decide on a career in science until high school. As a child, I loved drawing and crafting, and I pictured myself destined for a career in the arts. It was in my high school science classes that I first saw the intricacies of nature through the prism of science. I was close with my excellent science teachers at White Plains High School, and they encouraged me. By the time I applied for colleges, I knew that I would be majoring in a scientific discipline, and so I chose to attend Case Western Reserve University, a small Midwestern school well-reputed for its basic and applied science programs.
During my college summers at home in White Plains, NY, I interned at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in the lab of Dr. Marcia Goldberg. This position was obtained with the help and encouragement of my mother, who had been a post-doc at Einstein for many years. I was like a fish in water in the lab- I loved it from the moment I started. The detailed protocols and minute tasks appealed to my crafty side, while the overarching themes and complex questions challenged my intellectual side. In the free moments between protocol steps, I sculpted a tinfoil menagerie from scrap aluminum and designed lab jewelry from paperclips, colorful lab tape, and eppendorf tubes.
My dream was to attend Columbia University for my Ph.D. after college, and I was thrilled when I received the message on my answering machine from Dr. Marty Chalfie, the head of the Columbia Biological Sciences graduate program, that I had been accepted. My time at Columbia was the experience of a lifetime. I had the privilege of learning the ins and outs of fruit fly genetics under the mentorship of two brilliant scientists, Drs. Jim Erickson and Dan Kalderon. I also met my closest friends there.
I am currently working on my post-doctoral research in the lab of Dr. Jessica Treisman at the Skirball Institute of NYU Medical Center. My projects center on understanding how cells communicate with each other. Cells secrete small proteins, sometimes called growth factors, in order to signal to one another. Recent studies have found that these proteins can sometimes be attached to lipids, and this changes how they are passed between cells. I am studying the consequences of the lipid-modification of one growth factor in fruit flies, called Spitz. Flies are a model system to understand the general principles of cell communication, and many seminal discoveries involving growth factor signaling have come from fly genetics. My goal is to start my own lab at a small college where I can teach and do research with undergraduates. Teaching has always been a passion of mine, and I have been involved in numerous pedagogical activities throughout my education, including several outreach programs in Cleveland while I was in college, working as a teaching 
assistant for several of my professors in graduate school, and adjuncting in recent years for a graduate level Molecular Biology class at Queens College.
In my spare time I love to swing dance. I have been dancing for over six years. Occasionally I participate in performance groups, but mostly I savor the carefree jubilation of social dancing. I am fortunate to live in New York, where there are dance events every night of the week. Swing dancing is a fun, social way for me to exercise my body and my brain outside of the lab. I am constantly learning new things in my dancing, which keeps it interesting and gives me a sense of accomplishment. Dancing also demands a close interaction with other people, a similarity that it bears to science as well. In fact, one of my favorite things about science is the people, as some of the most fun, smart, and interesting people I’ve met in my life have been scientists. In both my work and my dancing, it is the spark of learning and the spirit of team-work that keep me interested and motivated. As a professor, I hope to pass on that passion for learning to my students and to continue my own enrichment through involvement in an intellectual community and discovery of the laws of nature.
