She did her Ph.D. work in the laboratory of Dr. Eric Knudsen at Stanford University, investigating crossmodal integration and plasticity in barn owls. She subsequently did her postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Karl Deisseroth, where she worked on developing and applying optogenetic strategies to dissect the function of defined cell-types within reward circuits in rodents. Her lab applies electrophysiology, optogenetics, and imaging to understand how reward circuits mediate normal behavior, as well as how they dysfunction in mental disorders.