Bass Connections Student Stories: Kirsten Bonawitz

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This is a field of research that is always changing and full of mysteries—and full of collaboration from so many different people and labs and specialties. This project will continue to play an important role in my academic and professional career.

Degree

Neuroscience ’17

Project Team

Brain-immune Interactions in Neurodegenerative Disease (2015-2016)

This team is comprised of three different labs that work collaboratively to study neurodegenerative diseases. To do that, we conduct experiments that ultimately seek to help us understand the basic pathophysiological mechanisms that underlie the onset and progression of neurodegenerative diseases, with a focus on Alzheimer’s disease.

I chose to apply to this particular Bass Connections team because I really wanted to get involved in hands-on scientific research. Furthermore, the overall theme of neurodegenerative diseases really fascinated me because this is a field of research that is always changing and full of mysteries—and full of collaboration from so many different people and labs and specialties.

Even more importantly, I think I was really drawn by the emotional component that drives this kind of research, because in the end the main goal is to help people who suffer from devastating diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

This project plays and will continue to play an important role in my academic and professional career.