September 20, 2022 | Bryan Wanzer

Neuroscience Careers: Dr. Aileen Anderson guides students through careers in neuroscience

Dr. Aileen Anderson is the director of a stem cell research center at the University of California, Irvine and has a unique perspective to guide students.

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Dr. Aileen Anderson is the director of the Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center at the University of California, Irvine. There she focuses on finding cures for neurological injuries and diseases using stem cells. She and her team’s research looks to find new discoveries and implement those innovations with actual patients in clinical settings.

Before getting started at UCI, Dr. Anderson was the first person in her family to go to college, where she studied engineering. She was just one credit away from graduating and decided to take a biomedical engineering course. There, she fell in the course content and decided to pivot her career goals. After graduating with her Bachelor’s degree, Dr. Anderson completed graduate school and earned her Ph.D. in Neurobiology.

“Find the thing you have passion for. That will help you sustain your career.”
Dr. Aileen Anderson, Director of Sue and Bill gross stem cell research center and find your grind mentor

Dr. Anderson and her lab at UC Irvine does a mix of discovery and translational research. They work on finding and discovering new things about neurological diseases and injuries. They also focus on how to take those discoveries and actually implement them to treat patients. In fact, Dr. Anderson describes her peak career experience as taking a discovery her lab made all the way to a clinical trial, a process that took over eight years to come to fruition.