MEET THE TEAM

Karla received her B.A. from University of California, Irvine. She worked for 10+ years at the Reeve-Irvine Research Center at UC Irvine, focusing on neural repair, regeneration, and recovery of function after spinal cord injury (SCI) under the supervision of Dr. Oswald Steward. Under the supervision of Dr. Ray de Leon from Cal State Los Angeles, she researched the effects of Body Weight Support Treadmill Training (BWST) and Enriched Environments after SCI in a rodent model. She worked for 2 years at the Center for Neural Repair at UCSD under the supervision of Dr. Paul Lu and Dr. Mark Tuszinski, testing rodent behavior and studying in vivo models of SCI. She relocated to Utah with family for her husband’s work at University of Utah, and worked part-time for a couple of years at the Utah Department of Health while raising her young family. She is now managing Dr. Jason Shepherd’s Lab at the University of Utah. Karla was born in El Salvador, and lived half her life in sunny California before moving to Utah. She is the proud mom of four kids and one dog, and enjoys all the seasons of beautiful Utah.