Kiersten joined the Lieber Institute in June 2025 as a Research Assistant in the Drug Discovery and Development in Vivo Pharmacology group led by Dr. Gregory Carr. She assists in projects investigating novel therapeutics for the treatment of neuropsychiatric and psychiatric disorders. Before joining Lieber, she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Neuroscience from Kenyon College in the Spring of 2025. Her past research in Dr. Hewlet McFarlane’s lab at Kenyon consisted of two main projects that focused on the behavior of the Autism Spectrum Disorders model mice (BTBR T+ Itpr3tf/J). In her first project she used behavioral assays to investigate the roles of growth hormone and the growth hormone secretagogue receptor in regional dopamine release and their effects on sociability and motivation in an ASD model compared to wild-type mice. Her second project focused on spatial and learning memory in ASD model mice compared to wild-type mice.