This episode features Nancy’s interview with Jessica who studies cerebellar influence on neural development and social and cognitive behaviors.

It was the tobacco hornworm that first gave Dr. Jessica Verpeut a taste of the wonder of science research. As an undergraduate interested in biology, Jessica joined an entomology lab studying the pesty hornworm, with the eventual goal of genetically engineering tobacco plants to be unpalatable to the worms. But this agricultural aim was not the aspect that kept Jessica motivated. Instead, she was most excited about the worms themselves and animal behavior more broadly. Today, as an assistant professor at Arizona State University, Jessica is still studying animal behavior (although she has left the hornworm behind). Her lab focuses on the role of the cerebellum in neural development, and how it influences everything from neural anatomy to animal behavior.