This episode features Nancy’s interview with Lakiesha who uses engineering principles to understand mechanistic changes in the brain resulting from repetitive head impacts.

When Dr. Lakiesha Williams chose a microbiology major upon entering Louisiana State University, it was not necessarily because she loved biology. The choice was driven by a desire to emulate her older sister, who loved playing school with Lakiesha and taught her to read at the young age of three. But the copious memorizing inherent in college biology did not capture Lakiesha’s passion. Instead, she excelled in calculus and was drawn to more analytical disciplines. In her second semester, Lakiesha switched her major from microbiology to biological engineering, and she has been thriving in this field ever since. Lakiesha is now an associate professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Florida, where she focuses on brain tissue mechanics in traumatic brain injury and other neuropathologies.