Rachel joined the Allen Institute in 2023 as part of the Scientific and Public Outreach Cell Type Taxonomies (SPOCTT) team. Her role is to make Allen’s cell type taxonomy tools and resources more accessible to other scientists and the general public. She completed her Ph.D. at West Virginia University, in the lab of Ariel Agmon. Her dissertation work studied the diversity and connectivity of cortical somatostatin inhibitory interneurons using a combination of intersectional transgenic mouse models, immunohistochemical labeling and anatomical tracing techniques, and confocal and super-resolution microscopy.

During her Ph.D., she used many of the open source tools from Allen and enjoys expanding and sharing these resources in her SPOCTT role. Prior to her Ph.D. she completed a B.S. at the University of Minnesota, double-majoring in Neuroscience and German Studies.