Lauren Stanwicks started working in the Stevens lab in 2018. Born and raised in Massachusetts, she graduated with a B.S. in Animal Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2015. She then went on to earn a M.S. in Neuroscience from UMass Amherst in 2016, continuing her work in the Novak lab to develop an automated nighttime activity quantification system for non-human primates. Lauren then spent two years as a technician in the Graybiel lab at MIT honing her in-vivo electrophysiology and fast-scan cyclic voltammetry skills. As a research technician in the Stevens lab, she employs molecular, behavioral, and electrophysiological techniques to study the developmental refinement of the prefrontal cortex to determine how dysfunction in the development of this unique area contributes to disease.