Summary

Lauren is a first year Neuroscience and Human Performance Doctoral Student. She earned a B.A. in Clinical and Counseling Psychology from Bellarmine University where she was also a Division 1 Track and Cross Country student-athlete. Lauren also holds an M.S. in Neuroscience from Tulane University where her research passion began. Upon graduation of her masters program Lauren accepted a full time Clinical Research Coordinator role in the Durazzo Lab at Stanford University School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Veterans Affairs Palo Alto to gain full time clinical research experience prior to applying to PhD programs. She completed 2 years as an Assistant Clinical Research Coordinator and Durazzo Lab Director. While at Stanford, Lauren carried out all day to day operations for an R01 examining the comorbid effect on those who smoke cigarettes and with alcohol use disorder (AUD) and double-blind randomized placebo controlled clinical trial examining the efficacy of intermittent theta burst repetitive transcranial a magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in Veterans with AUD. For both studies, she was the point person who recruited, screened, consented and carried out all study procedures with each participant for both studies. I was also responsible for scoring the data and entering it into their data management system as well as processing all neuroimaging data.

Prior to beginning the doctoral program at IU, Lauren joined the Clinical Neurotrauma Lab with Dr. Kawata, as a study coordinator and full-time research analyst in July of 2024. During her time in Dr. Kawata’s lab, she has been a part of the development and execution of a novel R01 grant looking at the effect of omega-3 supplementation on repetitive subconcussive head impacts in amateur soccer players. They utilize their soccer heading model and a multimodal approach to explore the physiological and neurobiological effects of the omega-3 fatty acids to mitigate the effect of subconcussive impacts. Lauren has been responsible for first authoring the protocol manuscript for the Omega-3 subconcussive head impact study which will set up a series of manuscripts throughout and following the omega study. Lauren will continue to hone her neuroimaging and neuroimage processing skills through the omega-3 study by acquiring the MRI’s and utilizing her previous processing knowledge to propel her learning of new neuroimaging methods. 

During her doctoral program, Lauren plans to refine her passion for neuroimaging and find her niche within neuroscience and human performance. She hopes to continue learning new neuroimaging techniques such as quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) which is being employed in the omega study. She also seeks to gain knowledge on the brain body connection and experience with techniques to observe physiological and psychological response to head impacts.