From: All over the US, most recently Chapel Hill, NC
Education: Kate received her Bachelor’s degree with Honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, majoring in biology and minoring in neuroscience. She also received her Associate’s degree from Beaufort County Community College before transferring to UNC-CH as a junior.
How she ended up here: Kate chose the University of Michigan for her graduate studies because of the friendly environment, how active grad students were in the community, and the outstanding neuroscience research. She was drawn to the Tronson lab by the fascinating research combining behavioral and cognitive neuroscience, neuroimmunology, and sex differences. During interviews, everyone kept telling her she had to meet Dr. Tronson because of how closely their research interests aligned!
Research interests: Kate is fascinated by how the brain and body work together to modulate risk for developing psychiatric disorders. She is passionate about understanding how stress and the neuroimmune system affect the brain and the contributions of individual and sex differences to this connection.
What she’s studied in the past: Kate’s first significant research experience was as a summer research intern with the SMART research internship for transfer students. She worked in the Social Neuroscience and Health lab with Dr. Keely Muscatell investigating the effects of socioeconomic stress on the cognitive abilities of older adults. It was in the SNH Lab where she first became passionate about the neuroimmune system and stress. She then completed her senior honors thesis with Dr. Sabrina Burmeister on a neuroethology project about the visual acuity of two species of tropical frogs. After undergrad, Kate joined the UNC post-baccalaureate research education program (PREP) where she studied how individual differences in the neuroimmune system affect vulnerability to a neuroimmune challenge (poly(I:C)) with Dr. Joyce Besheer.
What she’s studying now: In her rotation with the Tronson lab, Kate is investigating the effects of a subchronic immune challenge on learning and memory in older mice.
Hobbies/Fun Facts: Outside of academia, Kate can usually be found- outside! She loves to hike, go tubing, and identify every plant she can using the app Seek by iNaturalist. She also loves the arts, particularly music (her main instrument is mandolin), theater, and poetry.
Email: giffinka at umich.edu