Soaleha Shams, PhD

Soaleha Shams, PhD, is a research fellow at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where she is using CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing to study social and stress behavior in zebrafish. Shams explores expression and underlying neurobiology of zebrafish social behavior as a tool to understand typical vertebrate socialization, as well as to model atypical social behaviors that are part of human disorders such as depression, autism, and stress disorders.

Outside the lab, she loves advocating for mental wellness and science literacy in pre-K to grade 12 students through InSciEd Out. Shams received her PhD in behavioral neuroscience from University of Toronto, Canada, and previous postdoctoral training in psychopharmacology at Gothenburg University in Sweden. She is currently an NSERC [Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada] postdoctoral fellow and a community leader for the Neuronline Community.