Shea Ricketts is a PhD student in the laboratory of Dr. Li Qian. Her doctoral work examines post-transcriptional regulation in cardiac fibroblasts and how alternative splicing specific to fibroblasts alters cardiac fibrosis and heart function. Originally from California, Shea received her B.A. in Biophysics from the University of San Diego in 2018. There, Shea ran for the Toreros NCAA D1 Cross Country and Track team, where she was named the 2018 West Coast Conference Female Sportsmanship Award recipient. While earning her B.A., Shea conducted research in Dr. Rae Robertson-Anderson\u2019s soft matter laboratory, where she studied the relationship between force, deformation, and mobility in biomimetic cytoskeleton networks. After graduating, Shea continued her work with the Robertson-Anderson group as a post-baccalaureate research assistant where she developed in vitro platforms to systematically tune cytoskeleton inspired networks to identify the role each component plays in cellular mechanics. When she\u2019s not working in the lab, Shea enjoys traveling, hiking in national and state parks, trying new recipes, and cheering on the San Diego Padres baseball team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"