Office of Merit Scholarships, Fellowships & Awards (OMSFA)

Gina is a graduating senior in the Honors program majoring in Psychology. Her interest in psychology began in high school, and her love for it has grown as she has learned more about its importance, impact, and many subfields throughout her time at UW. Her passion for this field, neuroscience, and mental health, as well as her experiences volunteering at a memory care facility, motivated her desire to embark on a research project in a behavioral neuroscience lab.

She began working in the KIM lab in 2023 under the supervision of Dr. Jeansok Kim on a project that aims to increase our knowledge about fear-related disorders through the improved understanding of social transmissions of fear. Specifically, she is examining social buffering and observational fear learning through individual and dyad pairs of rats in a naturalistic foraging environment. This experience has taught her about the comprehensive research process, challenging her and increasing her confidence in her abilities as a researcher. She is incredibly grateful for the encouragement and support she has received from her mentor, as well as the generous funding from the Mary Gates Research Scholarship and the Thomas Sedlock Icon Scholarship that will allow her to continue and expand her project to include a larger and more diverse sample size, as well as offer more time she can devote to her research. By aiding in the completion of her thesis project, these scholarships are supporting her goal of pursuing graduate school and becoming a clinical psychologist. In addition to her research project, Gina is also a teaching assistant for the psychology statistics courses and a mentor to three undergraduate psychology majors. She enjoys supporting her peers and strengthening her leadership and communication abilities through these experiences. Gina is also a member of the UW treble choir and the UW women's ultimate frisbee team.