Valerie Kress will be graduating a semester early in December 2019 with a Bachelor of Science in Cognitive Science, a minor in Neuroscience and as an honors student heading to medical school. Valerie is the first person in her family to complete a college education and has been on the Dean’s list for the past several semesters. Her honors thesis project, advised by Dr. Linnea Ostroff in PNB, is titled Assessing the Morphology of Primarily Symmetric GABAergic Synapses in Safety, Fear, and Handling Conditions. Her project focuses on qualifying and identifying different types of synaptic vesicles. After Valerie graduates, she plans to take a gap year working as a Patient Care Associate at a hospital in New York to give back to her community and make a difference. She plans to go to medical school and become a pediatric neurosurgeon in order to see if there could be a neurological cure of disorders such as ADHD, anxiety, or depression.

Below are some of Valerie’s other accomplishments and roles in her communities:

• Member of KDSAP
• Member of Pre-Medical Society
• Research Assistant in the Ostroff Laboratory in the PNB department at UConn since Sophomore year.
• Volunteers at many blood drives and bone marrow drives for Pre-Medical Society
• Volunteered last summer in the emergency room at the hospital in her hometown