Shana Snarrenberg

Faculty Advisor: Kirsten Beyer, PhD, MPH, MS
Year Entered MCW: 2018
Previous Education: Washington University in St. Louis, BA; University of Illinois at Chicago, BS

I am an MD/PhD student in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP), currently working towards my PhD in Public and Community Health. I grew up in St. Louis and after spending one year in New York studying violin performance, I returned to St. Louis to complete a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology at Washington University in St. Louis. My passion for social justice and public health issues began in high school and continued through college including topics in women’s health, sexual health, LGBTQIA+ visibility and inclusion, racial justice, mental health, and educational equity. Educational equity in particular struck a chord with me, and after college I enrolled in an alternative certification program recruiting STEM teachers to high need schools. This program took me to Chicago where I spent one year teaching high school chemistry. Knowing that I wanted to have a front-line role but also generate systemic changes, I moved on to pursue a career as a physician scientist. In pursuit of this goal and to develop skill sets of personal interest, I went on to complete a Bachelor of Science in Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I then matriculated into the MCW MSTP in 2018. During my first two years of medical school, I was involved in volunteer activities supporting MCW pipeline programs and leading the Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association’s educational outreach program. Now, as a graduate student, I plan on investigating potential solutions to address inequities in public education. My research experience thus far includes morphological clustering of interictal spikes in electrocorticography data in patients with intractable epilepsy, and electrophysiology and in vivo imaging methods to study opioid withdrawal induced anxiety in mouse models. I particularly enjoy working with big data and technology, and I hope to apply these skills as I delve into applications of neurofeedback for mental health treatment and in education. I also look forward to learning and implementing a community-engaged model of public health research.