Ally is a 4th year PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering. Her research focuses on the intersection between psychological stress and traumatic brain injury. Ally’s work involves using rodent models of stress and brain injury to determine the effects of each and the interactions of those insults on the blood brain barrier. Using immunohistochemistry, qPCR, and western blotting techniques, the brains from these animals are analyzed to determine how blood brain barrier dysfunction caused by these insults, leads to neuronal dysfunction and disease.