Julia is a PhD candidate in the biological sciences department at Carnegie Mellon, mentored by Dr. Eric Yttri. She studies how decision-making strategies change in response to increases in environmental uncertainty and the role of the striatum in this process. She utilizes mice trained on a two-armed bandit Y-maze task and optogenetic manipulations to answer her research questions.
Julia graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2017 with a B.S in neuroscience as well as minors in Chemistry and French. She enjoys spending her free time exploring new restaurants around Pittsburgh and cheering on the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Penguins.