Katie started as a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Selva Baltan’s lab in summer 2024 having just moved to Portland from Lexington, Kentucky with her husband Derek, 5 cats and 3 large dogs.

Katie finished her PhD in neuroscience from the University of Kentucky earlier this month and was drawn to Portland by Dr. Baltan’s research as well as her love of trees and mountains. Her expertise is in flow cytometry and B cells. She loves anything to do with the immune system and how it plays into the central nervous system. Katie would love to move to clinical trials in the future for individualized therapies based on flow cytometry as a diagnostic tool.

Fun fact: Katie has been a dancer for over 20 years (little bit of everything - loved jazz and hip-hop the most) and was the dance team captain at Centre College for 3 of her undergraduate years.