Experience

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  MATTER

  • Chicago, Illinois, United States

  • Venture Acceleration Manager

    • Nov 2023 - Present
    • Chicago, Illinois, United States

    As the Venture Acceleration Manager at MATTER, I lead the recruitment of startups that accelerate the pace of change of healthcare into our portfolio and advance member satisfaction by providing access to resources that aid in a startup's success.

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  Chicago Biomedical Consortium

  • United States
  • Biotechnology Research
  • 1 - 100 Employee

  • Schedule 1 Therapeutics - Strategy and Operations Manager

    • Mar 2023 - Nov 2023

    Externship with Schedule 1 Therapeutics, a preclinical biotech company developing cannabis-based medicines for FDA-approval in the treatment of pain and central nervous system disorders.

  • PainNavigator - Business Development

    • Feb 2023 - Nov 2023

    Externship with PainNavigator, a digital health app that provides an accessible and evidence-based interdisciplinary therapeutic program via a digital platform to help people with acute and chronic nonsurgical pain.

  • Entrepreneurial Fellow

    • Mar 2022 - Nov 2023

    As a bio-entrepreneur, Schnaude leverages her scientific expertise and strong analytical skills to identify, evaluate, and prioritize translational biomedical technologies based on their scientific merit and commercial potential. She aims to lead and grow business relationships within the organization as well as across entities to create value and garner a competitive advantage.

  • Vieda Health Ventures - Alliance Management & Deal Flow

    • Sep 2022 - Jan 2023

    Externship with Vieda Ventures, a health tech venture studio looking to accelerate the adoption and commercialization of technology in healthcare and life sciences by triple de-risking innovation, providing support & access to domain expertise, and creating community among entrepreneurs.

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  Developing Capacity Coaching

  • Chicago, Illinois, United States

  • Business Development Lead

    • Jun 2023 - Aug 2023
    • Chicago, Illinois, United States

    With DCC, Schnaude identifies potential partners who are in need of transforming their professional environments to a place where everyone has the opportunity to actualize their full potential and to effectively lead for equity and justice. Using industry best practices, she establishes, develops, and maintains positive business relationships with partners and other interested parties, all guided by our core values of equity, justice, healing, and love.

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  Northwestern University

  • Evanston

  • PhD Candidate

    • Jun 2019 - Mar 2022
    • Evanston

    In the lab of Dr. Mitra Hartmann, my research focused on using the rodent vibrissa (whisker) system as a model to investigate the neurobiological mechanisms of sensorimotor integration in the rodent brainstem. A large open question in the study of motor control is how fast motor control circuits can make use of incoming sensory data to guide motor actions. My thesis research uses the rodent vibrissa (whisker) system as a model to study sensorimotor integration at the level of the brainstem. The vibrissal-trigeminal brainstem loop, which goes from the whiskers to the trigeminal ganglion (Vg) to the spinal trigeminal nuclei to the facial motor nucleus, to the whisker muscles, is thought to be responsible for reflexive whisker retraction upon encountering a novel tactile stimulus. The trigeminal brainstem nucleus is subdivided into three nuclei, each with its own contribution to sensorimotor function. The interpolaris subnucleus of the trigeminal brainstem (SpVi) contains projections that innervate the facial motor nucleus and can provide modulation of these brainstem-based reflex arcs. This structure is thought to be part of a reflexive loop that mediates orientation towards or away from a stimulus. How do SpVi neurons aid in whisker-mediated orientating behaviors? Specifically, can they encode directionality and speed of tactile surfaces that brush along the whiskers? We propose to investigate the integrative properties of these neurons to further our understanding of their role in encoding spatial information. The goal of this project is to quantify the sensory signals that guide motor control using the whisker system in the anesthetized rat.

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  Northwestern University

  • Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

  • PhD Candidate

    • Sep 2015 - Apr 2019
    • Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

    Returning to the lab of Dr. Disterhoft, I worked on developing a rat model of memory facilitation based on brain stimulation. My goal was to explore the neurobiological mechanisms by which changes in the cortical-hippocampal network occur in order to support associative memory. Doing so may help us to modify memory for the purpose of memory enhancement in the case of memory loss and can help facilitate a non-invasive therapy based on brain stimulation for people suffering from memory impairment.

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  Albert Einstein College of Medicine

  • Neuroscience Department

  • PREP Scholar

    • Aug 2013 - Jun 2015
    • Neuroscience Department

    In the lab of Dr. Kamran Khodakhah, I worked on determining the functionality of the cerebellum-ventral tegmental area (VTA) pathway. We hypothesized that the cerebellum may play a role in social interaction by modifying the activity of the VTA, an area recently implicated in social behavior. Using a variety of techniques, including optogenetics, electrophysiological recordings, both in vivo and in vitro, and behavioral paradigms, we were able to confirm the existence of a short latency excitatory pathway and suggest the cerebellum may play a role in social interaction.

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  University of Maryland Baltimore County

  • Psychology Department

  • Undergraduate Student Researcher

    • Aug 2010 - May 2013
    • Psychology Department

    Conducted sustained research with Dr. Robert Provine at UMBC on determining the possible age and sex related differences in hiccupping post-natally as well as evaluating the scleral color of the eye as a cue of socially significant information about health and attractiveness. I aided in the first detailed description of hiccupping during postnatal life and administered self-report surveys to determine the possible age and sex related trends on the frequency of hiccups. I also administered surveys that evaluated the scleral color as a cue of socially significant information about health and attractiveness by contrasting the perception of eyes with normal white with copies of those eyes whose whites were reddened, yellowed or super-whitened by digital editing.

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  Northwestern University

  • Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

  • Research Intern

    • Jun 2012 - Aug 2012
    • Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

    Under the direction of Dr. John Disterhoft and with members of the lab, I carried out two projects where I injected viral tracers into the perirhinal cortex of rabbits to establish the feasibility of finding neuroanatomical pathways projected from the perirhinal cortex involved in trace eyeblink conditioning and created lesions in the prelimbic region of the prefrontal cortex to test the effects of post-learning lesions on trace eyeblink conditioning.

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  Carnegie Mellon University

  • Biological Sciences Department

  • Research Intern

    • Jun 2011 - Aug 2011
    • Biological Sciences Department

    Working with Dr. Nathan Urban, I obtained and analyzed audio and visual recordings of different mice behaviors in order to determine the feasibility of using the audio recordings alone to determine mice behavior. I also observed and performed immunohistochemical techniques in the analysis of ion channel expression changes at different stages of life in excitatory neurons on the mitral cell layer of the mouse olfactory bulb.