Molly Morgan graduated in May 2014 from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a dual degree in Animal Sciences and Environmental Sciences. During her undergraduate career, she participated in several research projects on the UMass campus and also gained animal experience outside of the institution. The summer after Molly's freshman year, she worked as an intern for Project Wildlife, a wildlife refuge in her home town of San Diego. Her primary responsibilities included feeding and medicating animals, as well as training volunteers. Molly joined her first research project her sophomore year when she began working in the Massachusetts Pesticide Analysis Lab. This lab studied the ability of several plant species to phytoremediate pesticides commonly used in golf courses. The following summer she worked at an exotic bird store in San Diego where she raised and trained parrots. The first semester of her junior year she joined a lab that studied the effects that sex hormones have on aging marmosets, a species of nonhuman primate. Alongside her love for working with animals, Molly developed a fascination with the science behind toxins. Consequently, Dr. John Marshall Clark, the Primary Investigator of her pesticide toxicology lab allowed her to join his other lab which focuses on studying the neurotoxic effects that insecticides have on the central nervous system of mammals. Initially her primary duty was to assist a graduate student with frog surgeries, but she quickly became more involved with the lab. By her final semester at UMass Molly completed her honors thesis focusing on the neurotoxicology project while continuing to work in the other two labs. In the fall of 2014, she will be attending the University of Wisconsin at Madison to pursue a Ph.D. in Molecular and Environmental Toxicology.
Veterinary and Animal Sciences