Makenzie Johnson
She/They
I am an agender lesbian and I am a neuroscientist.//
I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry at a small school in Florida. I currently work as a post-baccalaureate research fellow in a neuroscience microscopy lab near Washington, DC. I study the neurons of the nucleus accumbens that project to the ventral tegmental area, regions of the brain involved in motivation and substance abuse. Currently I am working on a study correlating the mRNA expression patterns of these neurons to their specific neurotransmitters and location within the accumbens. I am applying to medical scientist training programs currently with the goal of studying Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias and establishing a career as an academic physician in neurology. While I have known my sexual orientation since late high school, my community was not a safe environment to come out, and neither was the college that I attended. The environment in Maryland that I am not a part of has allowed me to live my life out as a lesbian, explore my gender identity, and discover that I identify as agender.