Mikel Cawley

Mikel Cawley is a graduate student in Virginia Tech's Translational Biology, Medicine, and Health (TBMH) program. She received a B.S. in biology with an emphasis in physiology and an M.S. in biology concentrated in neuroscience from Northern Michigan University. For her thesis work, she worked in the lab of Dr. Erich Ottem, characterizing the impacts of mitochondrial dysfunction on presynaptic motor neuron pathology and the loss of muscle-synthesized brain-derived neurotrophic factor in progressive neuromuscular disease pathology. She joined Fralin Biomedical Research Institute in 2020 as a research assistant in the laboratory of Dr. Sora Shin. Her current research, working with Dr. Shannon Farris, is focused on the molecular and bioenergetic signatures of mitochondria within the CA2 of the hippocampus.