Tracy Peters Name: Tracy L. Peters Nationality: American Educational background: B.S. in Psychology, Loyola University Mentors: Weimin Ye, Fang Fang, Dale Sandler, Freya Kamel Area of study: Neuroscience and Epidemiology Current location: Karolinska Institutet Research interests: Neuroscience, Epidemiology, Psychology Recent publications:
Post Baccalaureate Intramural Research Training Award, Mulcahy Scholar PERSONAL STATEMENT: WHAT DOES THE PROGRAM DO FOR ME? The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Karolinska Institutet Ph.D. program provides me with a one-of-a-kind opportunity to work in two first-class laboratories in two different countries. From this, I am able to work with people who are different in scientific thought and am able to learn various techniques to solve problems about neuroscience, neurology, and epidemiology. Furthermore, this program allows me the unique experience of working with the Swedish Population Registries. A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME I grew up in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois and studied psychology at Loyola University Chicago for my undergraduate degree. After graduating from college, I took a post-baccalaureate intramural research training award (IRTA) fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) in Bethesda, Maryland. During the course of my fellowship I worked with a research group that studied the extent to which cognitive changes occur in patients with motor neuron disorders such as primary lateral sclerosis (PLS) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). While working at NINDS, I was able to talk to several ALS patients and their caregivers. I quickly found out that ALS is a debilitating disorder with progressive muscle paralysis; in particular, this paralysis leads to limitations on a patient’s ability to walk and eat, and in some cases these ALS patients even display cognitive and behavioral impairments. Seeing firsthand how this disease affects individuals heightened my interest in neuroscience and neurology. After my fellowship, I spent some time working at the Genetic Epidemiology Research Branch within the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). This experience allowed me to expand my knowledge of epidemiology and learn more about psychiatric disorders. During my time at the NIMH I came across a flyer for the NIH/Karolinska Institutet Ph.D. program, which described a Ph.D. project that studies ALS from an epidemiologic perspective. Given my past work experience and current interests, I decided that this program was a perfect match for me. I applied to the Karolinska side of the program. PEOPLE I AM WORKING WITH AND SCIENTIFIC WORK I AM DOING I am working with Drs. Weimin Ye and Fang Fang in the Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics Department at the Karolinska Institutet, Solna, Sweden, and with Drs. Dale Sandler and Kamel Freya at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. My project focuses on environmental risk factors and prognostic indicators for ALS, and uses data from the Swedish Population Register and other Swedish registries. In the United States I am working with different datasets that contain information about U.S. veterans and ALS to complete my research. |
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