Elena graduated from Boston University in 2023 with an honors Bachelor of Arts in Neuroscience. Before coming to the Stanley Center, she worked as an undergraduate research assistant in Benjamin Wolozin’s lab. Elena currently works with Ana on disease modeling of psychiatric illness, using human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) differentiated into excitatory neurons that have AKAP11 mutations. She is mainly focused on the molecular characterization of the cell lines using techniques such as Western blot and high-throughput imaging. She has recently joined a new project, in collaboration with the Pan lab at the Broad Institute to optimize hiPSC neuronal differentiation for high-throughput automated whole-cell patch-clamp recordings. When not in the lab, Elena enjoys reading, playing volleyball, and exploring Boston!