Accomplishments & News

Catalina Argandona Lopez recently graduated in the spring of 2022 with a B.S. in Physiology and Neurobiology at the University of Maryland, College Park. She was born in La Serena, Chile and raised in Gaithersburg, Maryland. For the past 3 summer she has been working in Dr. Amanda Brown’s lab focusing on neuroinflammation and inflammasomes. She recently took her MCAT and is now working as a Research Technologist in the Brown Lab.

Favorite quote: “The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science.”  – Albert Einstein

Hi, I’m Erika! Originally from Campbell, CA, I moved and grew up in Eugene, OR. I graduated in June of 2022 from the University of Oregon where I majored in Human Physiology and minored in Folklore. In the summer of 2021, I worked in Dr. Amanda Brown’s lab where I conducted research on bipolar disorder and how the L-type calcium channels of microglia may contribute to the illness. In 2022, I joined Dr. Leah Rubin’s lab where I investigated HIV’s impacts on cognition, specifically, information processing speed. Participating in research was the highlight of my college career and I hope to continue contributing to the field of neuroscience in the future.

My favorite quote is: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Michael Gary Scott, Wayne Gretzky