Aristides Arrenberg

I am an international student from Germany. I grew up in Hamburg, a green city close to the sea. At the University of Hamburg I began my undergraduate studies in Biochemistry. During a summer academy in Switzerland I got fascinated by the neural mechanisms of the brain and the yet incomplete knowledge about it. At the Center for Molecular Neurobiology Hamburg I did a project on chloride channels.

In 2000 I’ve been to California for the first time when I lived in San Diego for one month. I arrived in San Francisco in mid-August and I like it very much so far. As I took my surfboard with me I am ready to jump into the sea for a surf session. I also like windsurfing and snowboarding. And I am looking forward to exploring the nature in the surrounding

Sharon Bergquist

I was born and raised in Boulder, Colorado, and since moving away for college, I have realized just how much I love the mountains and how much Colorado is a part of my heart.  I spent my college years at UC San Diego, and with only a little struggle came to love the ocean, the beach, and 70 degree weather all year round.  It was at UCSD that I took my first neuroscience class, and I was hooked from the start!  I have taken this past year off to gain some lab experience, and also to travel.  I have been traveling, taking Spanish classes, and volunteering in South America for the past 3 months, and I am currently in Cusco, Peru with a month and a half to go.  I have always loved San Francisco and I am thrilled to have the chance to explore the city and all of its opportunities more in the next couple years.  After this year off, I am feeling re-energized and really excited to get back into the classroom and the lab!

Kristofer Bouchard

Growing up in the northern reaches of Maine, where trees, potatoes and Moose outnumber people by about 10000000:1, I developed an enduring love for nature.  I continue to enjoy camping, hiking, running in the woods and tree-climbing.  The other notable characteristic of Northern Maine is the 6 months of winter.  I do not have enduring love of the cold.

Zack Chadick

I grew up in texas before moving to southern California to fall in love with the outdoors and earn a degree at Caltech. After graduation, I wasn't quite ready to leave S. Cal. So iI relocated to San Diego to do structural biology at Scripps and honed my appreciation for the sun and surf. I've been out of school for about two years now and am looking forward to continuing in my studies. While not working in the lab, I am an unabashed outdoorsman. I enjoy camping, hiking, and am an avid cyclist, having ridden the entire Pacific Coast. What San Francisco is lacking in sun and deserts, I am sure it will make up for in a novel, new environment which I look forward to exploring.

Amy Chang

I grew up in Houston and am very happy to have escaped to San Francisco.  My parents founded a biotech drug development company when I was 6, so I was surrounded by science growing up.  However, it wasn’t until I took a class on the ethics of neuroscience during undergrad that I really became interested in studying the brain.  I’m an MD/PhD student and finished my 2nd year of med school this past spring.  This summer, I took a trip to Taiwan and Sichuan Province and Tibet in China, so I’m refreshed and excited to finally get into the lab!  At the same time, I am sad to put the patient care aspects of med school on hold.  If you ever want to do any of the following things, let me know.  They’ve been on my to do list for-e-ver, and having a buddy would improve my chances of following through by orders of magnitude...learning Spanish, learning to sail, getting certified to scuba dive, and taking pottery and glass blowing classes. :)

David Gorczyca

I went to undergrad at UMass Amherst in western Massachusetts, where I majored in Biochemistry.  While I was there, I studied the developmental plasticity of neuromuscular junctions in fruit flies.  I also had the chance to do some research in Germany, where I learned that there is no better way to talk about science than over a good beer.  I am really excited to be starting graduate school in such a great new place, and certainly have tons of things I have to explore.  I am proud to have survived the drive across the country, and saw many interesting things along the way including the world’s largest prairie dog and a six-legged cow.  I like to travel a lot, and plan to do a lot of hiking and kayaking while I am here.  I also want to learn how to sail and scuba dive among many other things.

Wendy Huang

I was born in Taiwan and moved to the United States when I was 12.  After spending my high school years in a suburb south of San Francisco dreaming of practicing international medicine, I moved to Providence, RI to join an 8-year BS/MD program at Brown University with the intention of one day serving the most medically-underserved corners in the world.  However, ever since recording those first field potentials from a rodent barrel slice and watching epileptiform activities traverse across the cortex, I've found myself more fascinated and invested in the brain with every question I came across.  At Brown I studied neuroscience, literary theory, and medicine.  After 2 years of medical school, I finally admitted to myself that neuroscience is not something that I want to just do extracurricularly but something to which I want to eventually devote a significant portion of my life.  So that's how I end up back here on this coast, and I'm looking forward to finally doing neuroscience full-time at UCSF!  In my free time I enjoy jogging, boxing, and learning about politics and cultural theories.

Ervin Johnson

I was born and raised in Pleasant Hill, CA where I decided very early on (fifth grade) that I was going to be either a brain surgeon or a professional football player when I grew up. As a got a little older though that whole brain surgeon thing seemed less and less appealing, so instead I focused my efforts on making it to the NFL. It wasn’t long after I began playing football for the University of California, Davis (UCD) however that it became pretty clear that I was never going to be the next Barry Sanders, and that I had better figure out what I was going do with my life. Well, medicine sounded like an ok idea, and getting some research experience sounded good too. Fortunately, medicine and research seemed to like me too. So here I am at UCSF as a member of the MD/PhD program. I’m currently thinking Pediatrics and Developmental Neuroscience

Kimberly Kempadoo

Hello UCSF!  My name is Kimberly Kempadoo and I was raised in Spring Valley, NY, a town just north of New York City.  As a young girl I fantasized about professions ranging from engineering to architecture and even to construction!  However, it was during high school that I discovered and began focusing on my true passion: neuroscience.  I dedicated myself to dopamine research in Dr. Donald Faber’s laboratory at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY.  Who would have thought that I would one day return to the very hospital in which I was born to perform neuroscience research?  From there, I went on to study Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT with a minor in Science, Technology and Society.  Now that I have graduated, the time has come for me to part with the east coast.  I look forward to exploring all that San Francisco has to offer and cannot wait to join UCSF’s efforts to unlocking the mysteries of how the brain works.

Selina Koch

Jennifer Li

Rochelle Urban