2024-2026 Cohort
Mentored by Dr. Kenneth Dawson-Scully
Carina Pavlov was born in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. During her senior year at Lewisburg Area High School, she interned in the Borland Lab at Bloomsburg University, where her passion for research bloomed, cultivating malignant melanoma cells and testing the chemotherapeutic potential of betulin-derived compounds.
Currently, Carina is a rising junior at NSU. Her diverse, comprehensive interests led her to major in Neuroscience with minors in Pre-Health, Honors Transdisciplinary Studies, and Philosophy.
Carina recollects the formative experience she gained through volunteering in the emergency department and working as a nursing assistant at Evangelical Community Hospital. Those hands-on experiences motivated her to seek a future in the biomedical field. Carina has been conducting research in the Dawson-Scully lab, even before joining the U-RISE program. As a U-RISE trainee, Carina is involved in multiple projects, mainly evaluating the therapeutic potential of isoguvacine for epilepsy treatment; and studying the interaction between metabolic dysregulations and seizures. As a part of her U-RISE project, she is pioneering the development of dietary treatments for epilepsy evaluations in C. elegans. Her work aims to uncover underlying factors and novel strategies for managing epilepsy, contributing to the broader field of biomedical research. At NSU, she is actively involved on campus as the President of the Run Club and a member of both the Neuroscience Club and Scuba Club.