Alexis feels excited and privileged to be a member of the Tsai Lab. She graduated from Penn State University in May 2020 with a B.S. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology with a minor in Neuroscience.  During her undergraduate research in the Keiler Laboratory, Alexis worked on an honors thesis investigating and characterizing trans-translation inhibitors in bacterial pathogens in the hope of advancing our knowledge of potential novel antibiotics to combat antibiotic resistance.  After graduation, she continued this research through the support of the Arnold & Mabel Beckman Foundation and then assumed a research technologist position in the Keiler lab, where she focused on developing a new methodology for isolating bacterial ribosomes actively undergoing trans-translation. Alexis is now looking forward to transitioning into the neuroscience field in order to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying mental health phenomena such as major depressive disorder through behavioral studies of mice exposed to environmental stressors during early development, and subsequent analysis of the cellular effects of such stressors in the cortex of the brain.