PhD Candidate
Oklahoma State University
I'm a 4th year PhD Candidate at Oklahoma State University. My thesis work lies at the integration of reproductive physiolgoy and behavioral neuroendocrinology. Specifically, I study how mating/parental stratgies within a species impact their reproductive physiology from both evolutionary and life-history perspecives. In addition to my thesis work, I am supplementally funded as a research assistant on a NIH grant that integrates behavioral neuroendocrinology and nutrition, hence my representation at this conference. This grant utilizes a mouse model to investigate the role of estrogen in age and menopause associated deline in women. We examine how pinto bean and fiber supplemntation interact with estrogen status and B-glucuronidase to influence behavioral markers of memory and cognition, neural estrogen expression, and neuroinflammation.