Gayathri Muthukumar is a junior in Columbia College majoring in biology. She is very interested in neuroscience and immunology and has previously worked at the Gladstone Institutes at UCSF studying cerebrovascular pathology in Alzheimer's disease, specifically looking at how the blood protein fibrinogen contributes to neurological disease by exacerbating inflammatory and neurodegenerative processes. She is currently studying the role of innate immune responses in neurodegeneration following Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) using the Drosophila model, in the lab of Dr. Michele Shirasu-Hiza at the Columbia University Medical Center. Gayathri aspires to pursue a career in translational and basic biomedical research.