Jack-Morgan Mizell

They/Them

I’m queer and I’m a psychology/neuroscience PhD student. //

I’m a queer, non-binary, and overall chill person studying decision-making at the University of Arizona. The current focus of my work is on what drives exploration, with two distinct arms. For my National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow work, I’m studying how healthy older adults explore options and how this exploration differs in clinical populations. In the other, funded by a University of Arizona Student Research Grant, I’m studying how bumblebees explore different food sources while foraging. My identities are deeply (although abstractly) tied to my interests in exploration. Is there a deeper form of exploration than exploring yourself? This also means I bring a different, and therefore valuable, perspective to science. I have worked and continue to work mentoring queer people in STEM, because I have met very few queer scientists I could look up to. I have also experienced a lot of harassment/sexual harassment as a result of my identities in the workplace and felt that I had nowhere to turn. I want to make sure that others who experience this have someone to turn to.