She remember being allowed to visit the Harrisburg hospital to watch the head of medical photography, Frances Goldsborough, work.
Her focus changed, however, when she participated in her senior grade science fair, where she presented an experiment titled "Development and Investigation of a Lysozyme Resistant Mutant of Bacillus Megatherium".
While there, two of her classmates were children of Nobel Prize winner Haldan Keffer Hartline and they convinced their father to give a lecture at the college.
The speech inspired her to work at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) where Hartline had, along with changing her research focus specifically onto the physiology of vision.
[6] The software allows for the simulation of neuronal activity and can be used to observe how different electrical signals are affected by diseases such as multiple sclerosis.
[7] Made on a CD-ROM, it allows for students to test voltage and current effect on neurons that mimics a laboratory experiment scenario.
[8] In December 2007, she was given the Educator of the Year award by UNC's Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience for her work on the Neurons In Action software.