Nora Wolcott is a PhD candidate in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at UC Santa Barbara, where she is advised by Dr. Michael Goard. She received a B.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from George Washington University, where she first became interested in the genetic blueprint through her work in butterfly development with Dr. Arnaud Martin.

Her interests expanded into neuroscience when Nora joined Russel Snell's lab at the University of Auckland, where she conducted Huntington's disease research using a sheep model. Before pursuing a PhD, she worked under Dr. Michael Krashes at the NIH NIDDK, where she investigated neural circuits underlying feeding behavior.

In her current position, Nora is pursuing research at the intersection of systems neuroscience and women's health. Her dissertation work centers on interrogating how hormone cycles drive changes in spatial representations in the hippocampus using two-photon microscopy. Ultimately, she hopes to further our understanding of how steroid hormones shape the structural and functional architecture of the brain, and take steps towards making neuroscience accessible for and applicable to all.