Sarah Applebey '18
Class Year
2018
Area(s) of Study
Majors in Neuroscience and Psychology
High School
Carmel Catholic High School
Transferred From
College of Lake County
Why did you choose to attend Lake Forest College?
I visited the campus for the first time my senior year of high school, and I had a really good experience sitting in on some classes and meeting with professors. I went to the College of Lake County to save money my first year of school and then transferred in with no problem.
How did you decide on your majors?
I started getting into science after my junior year of high school and psychology after I took an AP class my senior year. Neuroscience puts them both together. Ultimately, I’d like to pursue a PhD. This is a little bit obscure, but I’m really interested in food reward and stress-induced eating. I took a class with Assistant Professor of Psychology Jean-Marie Maddux that was an eye-opening experience. Neuroscience of Behavior just blew my mind. That’s what I want to research.
Have you had research experience at Lake Forest College that will help you achieve your career goal?
I worked in a research lab at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and currently am working in a research lab at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. A professor in neuroscience emailed a lot of students about the Northwestern opportunity and I worked with the Career Advancement Center to help me with my resume and apply for the internship. Professor Shubhik DebBurman walked me through what I would be doing in the lab and he gave me some background information. I was well-prepared for the interview and so lucky. People say, “Wow, you went to Feinberg for your internship?” But I don’t really feel like it was that big of a deal because I had so much background in the labs at Lake Forest College and help with preparing for the interview. I didn’t have to do it alone.
Were you preparing to work in a medical school research lab?
At Feinberg, the research they had me do was very similar to what I did in class in Biology 221. We looked at alpha-synuclein and truncated the protein and expressed it in yeast in class. I was very comfortable doing the same thing at Northwestern. At Rosalind Franklin, I’m working on the anxiety of behavior. I have friends who were working in that lab through a partnership the medical school has with Lake Forest College. I emailed the PI—the primary investigator at Rosalind Franklin—and asked if I could work in her lab. She said she’d love to have me intern with her. I already knew how to interact with PIs from Northwestern, so I felt comfortable reaching out.