After two years of working in California, Sara Olivia Baungaard is ready to shape her PhD project in the NAD PhD programme.
Sara Olivia Baungaard completed her master’s degree in Neuroscience from the University of Copenhagen in 2022. Since then, Sara has lived in the USA, working as a Research Associate at the Arc Institute in California.
For the past couple of years, Sara has focused her efforts on stem cell models of neurodegenerative diseases. During the pre-PhD year, Sara wants to explore the interconnections between neurodegeneration and immunology and hopefully bridge these insights in her PhD project:
“During the pre-PhD year, I want to explore the immunology field because there is a definite relation between inflammation, infection and neurodegeneration. I like that the NAD PhD programme allows me to explore another aspect of my research interests, and I hope to gain experience with different new techniques and assays,” Sara says.
Sara will do her first lab rotation in the Paludan lab at Aarhus University, a group that works at the intersection of immunology and neuroscience.
With experience from working in labs in both Aarhus, Copenhagen and California, Sara is well versed in adjusting to new environments:
”I think you learn a lot from experiencing different research environments. It makes you more open-minded when you are facing a challenging task because you know that there are different ways of solving the problem. You avoid getting stuck in your ways”, she explains.
Sara likes a challenge, and this is part of the reason why she gravitated towards neuroscience:
”Neuroscience is dynamic: new findings are constantly being published, and everything is up for discussion. I also really enjoy the international nature of the field. I feel like the entire scientific community is working towards the same goal, and I really enjoy the enthusiasm neuroscientists have about their fields of expertise”, Sara says.