Name: Emily Manoogian Hometown: Sanger (Fresno Area), California Hobbies: Traveling, tap dance, painting/drawing, being in nature (Yosemite, beaches, etc.) What do you study?  I am a chronobiologist, which means I study how organisms control the timing of various biological events and how they coordinate that timing with the environment. Specifically, I study how the timing of our […]

    Name: Kanaga Arul-nambi-rajan Hometown: Placerville, California Hobbies: Photography, cooking and baking (a lot!), hiking, writing What do you study?  I study an organ called the placenta that helps the baby get nutrients during pregnancy. The placenta is the thing that is attached to the OTHER end of a baby’s umbilical cord (the first end […]

Name: Margot Wohl Hometown: Bel Air, Maryland Hobbies: Yoga, cooking, watching movies, cuddling with my cat  What do you study?  I study the brains of fruit flies to find which genes, molecules, and brain cells play a role in their aggressive behaviors.  That’s right, flies fight! Why is it important? Violence leads to a lot of human suffering and […]

Name: Laura Sancho Hometown: Madrid, Spain Hobbies: Running, cooking, yoga, hiking, going to the beach  What do you study?  I study how cells in the brain “talk” to each other using electrical signals. I study brain cells in mice and use a super fancy microscope to look at the cells’ activity and see how the mouse’s experience changes the […]

Name: Ben Rubin Hometown: Berkeley, California Hobbies: I surf and compete with the UCSD surf team. When I’m not into the water, I like to run or bike for exercise. At home I read (started a book club), cook (lots of pastas), garden (mostly flowers), and eat chocolate (only dark). What do you study? I study a tiny living-thing […]

Name: Alie Caldwell Hometown: Wauwatosa, Wisconsin Hobbies: Outside of science, I spend my time cooking (mostly Mexican food), gardening (mostly tomatoes), writing (mostly YouTube scripts), and reading (mostly sci-fi, fantasy, and comics). I look for any excuse to spend time outdoors, hate running, and love hiking. What do you study? I study the ways that brain cells called […]

Name: Justin Mojgani Hometown:  Born in Houston, Texas; grew up in Virginia and West Virginia; high school and college in Philadelphia; moved on to Massachusetts and New Hampshire; then San Diego in June 2014. Hobbies: Surfing, hiking, antiquing, vinyl records, camping, travel, and reading. What is your background?  –       Associates Degree in Liberal Arts of Science. –       Taught […]

Name: Antonia Darragh Hometown:  Davis, California Hobbies: Sports, backpacking, yoga and volunteering What do you study? I study tiny worms. I want to know how worms that look very similar under a microscope have large differences in their DNA. DNA is the genetic material you get from your parents and that all organisms have; DNA says what type of organism you […]

Name: Emily Hatch Hometown:  Glens Falls, NY Hobbies: Reading, traveling, having dinner with friends What do you study? I think about how structures in our cells are put together and how they are changed over time to do different jobs. For the last 5 years I’ve been focusing on the membrane that separates your DNA from the rest of […]

Name: Aaron Sampson Hometown:  Norman, Oklahoma and Rice Lake, Wisconsin   Hobbies: Taekwondo, hiking   What do you study?  I work on developing new tools and techniques for analyzing human brain activity. Specifically, I look at recordings from the sleeping brain, and try to detect specific events, called sleep spindles, that occur during sleep. I have also worked on […]