Sarah Izabel

Sarah Izabel (she/her/ela/elas) is a Neuroscience Ph.D. student in the School of Medicine. She  investigates the effects of sleep on neuropsychiatric disorders and emotion regulation and is  advised by Dr. Andrea Goldstein-Piekarski. Sarah grew up in Brazil where she studied law before  immigrating to the United States to raise her son. Sarah received degrees in Biology and  Psychology at the Virginia Commonwealth University where she fell in love with Neuroscience.  Before pursuing her doctoral degree at Stanford, Sarah was a UGSP research fellow at the  National Institutes of Health (NIH) where she worked on understanding the neurological  domains underlying alcohol use disorder. Her time at NIH helped her gather a deep  understanding of social disparities in psychiatric research and she hopes to reduce such inequities through her RAISE fellowship. She is passionate about helping socially marginalized  populations like her own increase representation in scientific studies. Sarah hopes to include in  her investigation of sleep and emotion regulation a specialized and culturally sensitive recruiting  framework focused on Hispanics, Chican (os/as), and Latin (os/as/es) individuals in the Bay Area. She aims to connect with community partners who already serve these populations with the  goal of improving mental health outcomes. She anticipates that this effort will lead to more  precise and effective psychiatric treatments for Hispanic, Chican@, and Latinx people and their families. Outside of work, Sarah enjoys reading and spending time with her family.