Micaela is a PhD student in the Neuroscience Curriculum who joined the Cohen lab in 2025. Micaela graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in Fall 2019 with a B.S. in Neuroscience and minors in Chemistry and Physics. She wrote her undergraduate thesis in Dr. Caroline Runyan’s lab on functionally mapping the mouse visual cortex. She then went on to work with Dr. Cris Bragg at the Collaborative Center for X-Linked Dystonia Parkinsonism (CCXDP) at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. There, she investigated genetic mechanisms of neurodegeneration in XDP and helped establish the international brain bank initiative for the CCXDP. She is continuing her research in neurodegeneration through a co-mentorship with Shahzad Khan and Todd Cohen, studying the consequences of primary cilia dysfunction in Alzheimer’s Disease. Outside of the lab, Micaela enjoys running half marathons, traveling, and is the social media chair for the Don’t Trust the Narrator book club (@dont.trust.the.narrator on Instagram).