Hi, I'm Shaili
I'm a researcher with a passion for learning and mentoring.
I hold a Ph.D. in neuroscience and currently work to bring project management practices to the laboratory.
I'm a researcher with a passion for learning and mentoring.
I hold a Ph.D. in neuroscience and currently work to bring project management practices to the laboratory.
In order to share my intellectual journey and professional experiences, I must first acknowledge that English is not my first language. In fact, I have vivid memories of struggling to understand the difference between “author” and “Arthur” when given book reports in the 2nd grade. I remember feeling frustrated because I couldn’t understand what a paragraph was or how to pronounce “Santa” like all the other 3rd grade kids. I learned English from watching TV, my favorite teachers being Ms. Frizzle and Bill Nye the Science Guy. I learned English from weekly trips to the library where I borrowed (and re-borrowed) every audiobook cassette in the Children’s section. I also learned English in my favorite class - Spanish, where I finally felt like I was just like everyone else.
This is all to say that my story really starts with learning how to learn and finding ways to adapt to new environments. Whether it was navigating college as a first-generation student or figuring out post-Ph.D. plans, I have always viewed my successes and missteps as places for self-reflection and improvement. And through my family’s immigration story, I have understood that patience and optimism are critical tools for thriving in new surroundings.
It is therefore not surprising that I found a home in research. A field where you must work at the boundary between understanding everything that is known and seeking out what is yet to be understood.
My first year at Rutgers University began in the first row of a class called “Motivation and Emotion” and ended with a competitive summer science scholarship from the Aresty Research Center. I will admit, I didn’t know much about research; I had never been inside a research lab and I had only just started meeting research scientists. All I knew is that I loved learning about the brain and was pulled in by the curiosity of its unknowns. This summer science opportunity transformed into a three-year undergraduate research endeavor, resulting in co-authorship on a paper, a research fellowship, multiple travel grants, and an honors thesis that earned me a departmental research award. Let me tell you a bit about this work -
As an undergraduate research assistant, I examined ultrasonic vocalizations in rats to understand the role of affect in cocaine self-administering animals. Thereafter, as a part of my honors thesis in the Department of Psychology under Dr. Mark West, I performed in vivo electrophysiological recordings in the nucleus accumbens shell and the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) to examine selective firing of neurons during reward consumption in rats. By analyzing neurons in regions of the basal forebrain, this project allowed me to provide further insight into the potential neural mechanisms of reward processing and feeding behaviors.
During this period, I also completed coursework for a double major in psychology and cell biology and neuroscience. The research training I received not only provided me with technical skills such as electrophysiological techniques and animal behavioral assessments but also taught me the discipline it takes to be a scientist and the rewards of sharing your work with others.
By the end of my time at Rutgers, I was motivated to be a researcher full-time and found myself headed to graduate school.
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, about 500 miles away from home, I started my Ph.D. in neuroscience. There were many opportunities to continue my research in behavioral neuroscience, but I was drawn to the work of Dr. John Gilmore and Dr. Rebecca Kinckmeyer Santelli. By studying typical and atypical brain development in infants, their work aimed to reveal the structural and biological underpinnings of psychiatric illness during critical developmental periods. Under their mentorship, I joined a diverse and talented research team to study infant brain development. Key projects are outlined below.
SSRIs: Under the mentorship of Dr. Santelli, I spearheaded the first quantitative study of prenatal SSRI-exposure and structural brain development as assessed via high- resolution MRI. While there is widespread use of SSRIs during pregnancy, the in utero effects on the fetus are not fully understood. Our team found reduced gray matter volumes in the right thalamus and altered development of major white matter pathways in neonates exposed to SSRIs. Since completion, this work has inspired additional research into the impact of perinatal depression and SSRI exposure on brain development.
Neuroimaging Genetics and Enviromics: We applied state-of-the-art methods in image processing, genomics, and envirome analyses to a large and well-characterized population sample of infants with neuroimaging data. The goal of this research was to identify genetic variants associated with individual differences in early brain development. I also sought to understand how individual differences in brain structure are driven by prenatal and neonatal environmental factors. Overall, our pediatric neuroimaging-genetics approach is critical in identifying genetic influences and environmental variables that contribute to typical and atypical variation in prenatal/perinatal neurodevelopment.
Dissertation - Cortical Thickness and Surface Area: As a part of my dissertation, I studied cortical thickness (CT) and surface area (SA) during infancy. Specifically, I was interested in evaluating how genetic and environmental factors determine infant CT and SA. This was a critical undertaking given compelling evidence that neuropsychiatric disorders have their ultimate origin in prenatal and early postnatal development. In a span of three years, I examined the impacts of 17 major demographic and obstetric history variables on inter-individual variation in CT and SA in a unique sample of 805 neonates who received MRI scans of the brain around 2 weeks of age. Additionally, I examined genetic influences on CT and SA variation using a classical twin model in a subset of 376 twin neonates. Results revealed that genetic, obstetric, demographic, and socioeconomic factors are important determinants of cortical development during infancy. Both genetic and environmental influences drive individual differences in neonatal SA while variation in neonatal CT is largely explained by environmental factors such as paternal education and maternal ethnicity. These findings offer novel insight into how genetic and environmental influences shape infant cortical structure during a delicate and highly malleable period of neurodevelopment and fill important gaps in the current understanding of CT and SA.
When I finished graduate school, I found myself evaluating how best to apply my Ph.D. and training. Did I want to follow a traditional academic path or did I want to venture out with my research skills to influence scientific decisions and priorities? Ultimately, after years of digging deep into research questions, I decided it was time for me to expand out and work to lead and optimize research processes.
In January 2019, I started my role as a Senior Project Coordinator, providing project management support to Dr. Karestan Koenen and Dr. Laura Kubzansky at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. Now, as a Project Manager, I oversee research activities under numerous federally funded grants related to PTSD, depression, and chronic distress. Highlights of my work include:
Overall, this role allows me to merge my extensive research knowledge with my growing project management interests* to serve as a high-level contributor in daily project tasks and long-term research priorities within the group.
* I am currently completing a Certificate in Project Management at the Harvard Extension School with plans to take the PMP exam in the coming year.
In 2015 I was selected to be a part of Emerging Leaders in Science & Society (ELISS), a multidisciplinary, service-oriented leadership program hosted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In a diverse team consisting of UNC and Duke graduate students, I collaborated with academic experts, practitioners, and policymakers to identify and address the current challenges in drinking water systems in North Carolina and the United States. As an ELISS fellow, I gained critical leadership, management, and organizational skills that allowed me to expand and apply my skill sets as a graduate student to complex and large-scale problems.
Most recently in 2020, I was able to apply my project and program management skills to organize the COVID-19 Mental Health Forum Series at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. These forums introduced evidence-based skills to managing stress related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and presented techniques for adapting and enhancing resilience to the public. Led by Dr. Karestan Koenen, our team hosted 16 seminars featuring a total of 29 experts in the field of clinical psychology and trauma epidemiology research to address important emotional, psychological, and physical health issues related to daily life during a pandemic. Resources and recordings from this forum series are available here.
Lastly, I am deeply passionate about mentoring and sharing what I have learned with other first-generation college students, aspiring researchers, or neuroscience students. I have served as a formal mentor in various summer science research opportunities and have completed mentoring certificates at UNC-Chapel Hill and Harvard University. I am always open to speaking with students and helping them connect with resources.