Amy and Her Science
Today, our story begins with a young female scientist from Plano, TX. Her love for research
began in high school, when her goal was to become a doctor and she conducted her own research about the subject. This first step into research led her down a path of hard work and dedication. This week’s spotlight is on Amy Leonards, a Research Assistant in the Dulin lab. Amy is a self-proclaimed history buff who loves learning quirky facts. She is an adventurer who loves to try new things, whether it is a tai chi class or a new restaurant. Most of all, Amy is deeply dedicated to sports, as a youth girls’ volleyball coach and an ice hockey athlete alongside her best friend. Like many scientists, Amy has many layers that contribute to her uniqueness as a person.
Like many undergraduate science students, Amy initially had the ambition of attending medical school in order to become a physician. However, during her final year of her undergraduate program and into her Master’s Program, she took a step back to evaluate what she really wanted out of life. Amy wanted to explore options outside of medicine, so she did some research. As an athlete, she wanted her career to reflect a very important aspect of her life and knew sports medicine was the right choice. During her time soul searching, she found labs that conducted research that directly helped athletes post injury and knew that she wanted to get involved in this kind of research.
Amy has worked in the Dulin lab since 2018, during which time she has worked on several projects. As an undergraduate student, she developed a method for nerve crush injury in grasshoppers, which represents a novel invertebrate model for assessing locomotor recovery after nerve injury. She has also worked with graduate student Prakruthi Amar Kumar using “chemogenetics to selectively silence nociceptor activity in the dorsal root ganglion”. In other words, this project aims to silence the pain-signaling neurons that cause long-term negative outcomes after injury. Now, Amy is making contributions to a project to examine how regional identity of transplanted neural progenitor cells can influence the connections that are made between transplant-derived neurons with the host nervous system.
Why Research?
Just like how Amy is adventurous outside of the lab, the adventure in the lab is what keeps her in research. For Amy and many others in the lab, the chase to find something new fuels the desire to do research. This desire may also lead you to discovering new interests you may want to explore. For Amy, she is currently in the Dulin Lab, which studies spinal cord injury. However, since being in the lab, her interest has spread to other types of neurological injury, like traumatic brain injury or even some neurodegenerative diseases. This interest came to fruition as Amy’s role of coach and proximity to concussions made her want to expand her research to this topic. She is especially interested in outcomes and recovery after sports-related concussions, as assessed by imaging techniques such as Diffusion Tensor Imaging and other types of MRI.
For the Next Generation of Researchers
To wrap up this article, I asked Amy to give us a word of advice for undergraduate students
who may be considering research. This is what she had to say.
“Keep an open mind. Most undergraduates get into research hoping to continue on to one specific field (in our lab, usually they hope to continue onto medical school), but there are so many different paths. I think it's good to go into a lab that not only interests you, but also encourages you to ask questions outside of what their main focus is and explore different opportunities. Maybe you will find an interesting area of research or some other passion that you hope to pursue. It could be totally different than what you had in mind originally.”
On that note, we at the Dulin Lab want to encourage you to Follow The Science!