Ashley Juavinett
Ashley joined the UC San Diego neurobiology faculty as a teaching professor in 2018. After receiving her PhD in Neuroscience from UCSD, she worked at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow. Ashley was trained in visual and systems neuroscience but is now focused on developing best practices for training a diverse generation of scientists. Ashley co-directs the Contiguous BS/MS program as well as STARTneuro.
Austin Zuckerman
Austin Zuckerman is a graduate student in the joint Mathematics and Science Education Doctoral (MSED) program at UC San Diego and San Diego State University. He previously graduated with his B.S. in Biochemistry and Cell Biology and M.S. in Biology. He currently works on evaluation research for the STARTneuro program and examines biology students’ attitudes about coding. He has also worked on projects that have examined undergraduates’ experiences in research, faculty teaching, and student outcomes in biology courses.
Lily Vo
Lily Vo is an undergraduate at UC San Diego majoring in Human Health Psychology. She is currently a research assistant exploring biology students’ attitudes and perceptions about coding.
Alumni
Victor Magdaleno-Garcia
Victor worked as a Kavli Research Intern, helping with the early development of the NWB For Education online textbook.
Saloni Shah
Saloni Shah is a graduate from UC San Diego and served as a research intern on the neuroscience paths project (Shah & Juavinett, 2022).
Want to join the team?
We are currently looking for BISP 193 / Master’s students who are interested in one of the following:
- Conducting quantitative and qualitative research on coding in biology classes. Specifically, we’d like to know whether a growth mindset intervention can improve sense of belonging and self-efficacy for biology majors while learning coding.
- Understanding the demographics and skillsets of neuroscience professionals. You’ll work with our collected survey data to track career paths in neuroscience, and conduct follow-up interviews as necessary.
- Tracking the experience of diverse transfer students through STARTneuro. In 2021, we invited our first cohort of STARTneuro students to campus. We are following them throughout our program and beyond to understand their experiences and to develop best practices for training diverse students in STEM.
See the Research page for more context, and contact Ashley (ajuavine@ucsd.edu) if you’re interested.