Meet Sarahi Garza

Sarahi grew up in Los Angeles, CA and is a first-generation student who graduated in 2020 from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a B.S. in Neuroscience and Biomedical Research. At UCLA, Sarahi was an NIH funded Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) scholar in Dr. Stephanie Seidlits lab investigating the effects of hyaluronic acid at different molecular weights on neural stem cells to inform the production of biodegradable hydrogels for spinal cord repair. She joined the Neuroscience Graduate Program at the Oregon Health and Science University Vollum Institute in 2020. Sarahi later joined the Frank lab in 2021 and is interested in understanding the role of cannabinoid receptors in the brain and more specifically how they modulate food palatability through the application of the pharmacological tools developed in the lab. She hopes to make science more accessible to marginalized communities like her own. For fun, she is a foodie, likes to ride her razor scooter, and is trying to learn Arabic.