Biography

Kylia Ahuna received her B.A. in Neuroscience in 2019 from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Here, she worked as a research assistant studying the effects of social bonds on anxiety and depression-like behavior in rodents. After moving to Portland, OR, Kylia worked in Dr. Leslie Myatt’s lab as a research assistant studying the effects of obesity and gestational diabetes on placental health. During this time, Kylia also received her M.A. in Science Writing from Johns Hopkins University. Through her work in Dr. Myatt’s lab, Kylia realized her interest in public health and decided to pursue her MPH with a concentration in Health Behavior at The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

In her free time, Kylia volunteers for the Women in Science PDX Organization interviewing women in the STEM fields and publishing their biographies as a part of the Career Pathways blog series. She can also be found spending lots of quality time with her dogs, Hazel and Kevin, hiking and exploring the outdoors.

Selected publications

Gutzeit, V.A., Ahuna, K., Santos, T.L. et al. Optogenetic reactivation of prefrontal social neural ensembles mimics social buffering of fear. Neuropsychopharmacol. 45, 1068–1077 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-020-0631-1

Bucher M, Kadam L, Ahuna K, Myatt L. Differences in Glycolysis and Mitochondrial Respiration between Cytotrophoblast and Syncytiotrophoblast In-Vitro: Evidence for Sexual Dimorphism. International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 2021; 22(19):10875. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms221910875

Contact

email: ahuna@ohsu.edu