• author

Jordan Gaines
Ph.D. Candidate in Neuroscience and Freelance Science Writer

My interest in the brain was conceived after working in the rehab unit of a retirement home in high school and having a remote control thrown at me. I had spent three hours with this particular resident chatting about her late husbands, teaching career, and her grandchildren's hobbies. Twenty-four hours later, however, I was a complete stranger.

How was it that her brain—neurons with which she'd been born, chemicals that dictated her personality—could betray her in such a way?

I graduated from St. Mary's College of Maryland in 2011 with my B.A. in biology and neuroscience. When I wasn't studying, waking up at 5 AM for crew practice, or watching hilariously-subtitled Korean TV shows with my roommates, I could be found in the lab studying limb regeneration in the axolotl.

Currently, I'm a 2nd-year Ph.D. candidate in neuroscience at Penn State College of Medicine. I'm lucky enough to be studying one of my favorite activities: sleep! If you'd like to hear more about my graduate school progress, please feel free to e-mail me—I'd love to chat about it.

Besides blogging about neuroscience for my wonderful and supportive readers, I enjoy tinkering around on my clarinet, doodling, eating cake, being a gym rat (you know, to cancel out the cake), reading anything with words, and volunteering as a dog walker for my local Humane Society. I am also a reviewer for the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine.

Membership:

• National Association of Science Writers

• Society for Neuroscience

• Beta Beta Beta Biological Honor Society

• Nu Rho Psi Neuroscience Honor Society

Honors:

• Research Assistantship (2011, Penn State University)

• Neuroscience Award (2011, St. Mary's College of MD) 

• Research Blogging and Science Seeker Editor's Selections

• Semifinalist: 3 Quarks Daily Science Prize 2012

• Award for Literary Achievement (2007, HoCoPoLitSo)

• Publication in Creative Communications essay and poetry anthologies (2005-2007)