Ashley is a Ph.D. student in the Lu Lab and the Mackie Lab. She graduated from University of Rochester in 2020 with a B.S. in Brain Cognitive Science and a B.A. in Psychology. During her undergraduate years, she became interested in studying the neural mechanisms underlying behaviors, especially how early life experiences can shape and alter brain development. She conducted electroencephalography (EEG) studies on human subjects to study the relationship between congenital deafness and language acquisition with visual attention and tactile sensitivity. She then realized she wanted to study a more causal, rather than correlational, relationship between the brain and behavior.
Following her passion, she spent a year as a post-bac research assistant in Dr. Hailan Hu’s lab where she discovered the power of using animal models to study neural circuitry. She also learned valuable skills in system neuroscience research which led her to continue to pursue a Ph.D. in Neuroscience to further her career as a research scientist.