Abby St. Jean

Abby St. Jean

MS in Neuroscience Student

Abby St. Jean is a Master’s student in Integrative Neuroscience at Georgetown graduating in May 2026. Her work in the Burns lab focuses on peripheral immune cell recruitment, primarily T Cells, to neural injury sites, in both the High Frequency Head Impact and CCI models. She employs immunohistochemical, immunofluorescence, and qPCR techniques to answer these questions.

She graduated with a BS in Neuroscience and a minor in Studio Art in 2025 from American University in Washington, DC. She worked in the Laboratory for Neuroendocrinology under the mentorship of Dr. Colin Saldanha for 3.5 years. Her work here contributed to the understanding of the impact of estradiol and other sex hormones on spatial memory in the zebra finch. Her undergraduate thesis examined the effects of inhibiting estradiol in the hippocampus on the expression of hormonal receptor genes in distal connected brain structures. She also worked with Dr. Mark Laubach on training rodents in a behavioral reward task.

Her research interests span neurodegeneration and inflammation, neuroendocrinology, and psychiatric and mood disorders. Outside of the lab, she is an artist, crafter, and cat mom to her cat Louis.