Raised on a balanced diet of nature documentaries and science fiction in the ‘Decade of the Brain,’ I began my career studying animal behavior and foraging ecology as an undergrad at the University of Alaska Anchorage under Dr. Gwen Lupfer-Johnson. After a harrowing field season chasing monkeys in Costa Rica and a tour of duty in search of Miocene ape fossils in Hungary, I set my sights on graduate work in comparative neuroscience. I am working with Dr. Katerina Semendeferi utilizing all non-invasive, non-destructive means to comparatively study postmortem brain tissue from all extant ape taxa, including humans, in the hopes of elucidating the means by which our species became so wonderfully strange. Specifically, my work focuses on the chemical anatomy of the striatum and interneuron distribution in these regions, involved in decision-making and the processing of reward, particularly in social contexts. In the future, I hope to work to ensure the conservation of valuable postmortem tissues in captive and wild primates alike. Support for these projects has been provided in part by the Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA) and the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. 