Nikki received her B.S. in Bioengineering from UC Berkeley, where she pursued undergraduate research on congenital cataracts with Dr. Xiaohua Gong. After graduation, she worked with Dr. Raga Krishnakumar developing antimicrobial cell therapies at Sandia National Laboratories, before joining the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Group at UC Davis. Her research interests include engineering red-shifted glutamate sensors and developing high-throughput sensor screening and data analysis pipelines. Outside of the lab, she loves classical music, reading, cooking, and trying new restaurants!