Erika Gildea

My name is Erika Gildea, I am a junior Biology student with a Spanish minor at UMass Amherst. Although I have taken a variety of different classes and labs at this university my primary interests specifically include neurobiology, microbiology, and learning how and why the human body and it's organs function as they do. Due to these interests I was extremely excited to get the opportunity to join Rolf Karlstrom's Developmental Neurobiology lab at the beginning of my junior year. I had some experience working with model organisms, such as fruit flies and mice, so the opportunity of being able to work hands-on with zebrafish in this lab was extremely exciting. I was very interested in the specific research being done in this lab and I was eager to learn more regarding the zebrafish brain. I also think it's fascinating how we can use information we learn about the zebrafish brain and apply it to some unsolved questions we have regarding the human brain. Overall, I believe studying the brain and it's functions is a very interesting topic and it's enticing how much we have left to learn!