Lori Luo
Since first being exposed to research during her freshman year, Lori has been determined to continue research no matter what. She is primarily interested in the field of biomedical engineering, but has also done work overall within the field of biology.
Lori’s first experiences with research occurred at UCSF with the Xu Lab her freshman year, where she worked on creating a method to analyze the concentration of fatty acid synthase around the veins within mice livers. Watching the lab at work convinced her to continue to pursue biological research, leading her to participate in COSMOS at UCI studying biomedical research the next summer. Following these experiences, Lori went on to conduct biomedical engineering research at Boston University with Chen Lab in the BU RISE Internship program. There, she worked on creating a breast epithelial cell line with labeled centrosomes to allow for real-time monitoring of cellular invasion in an engineered model.
At school, Lori pursued research through a ball python breeding project that she started with her biology teacher junior year, expanding the number of snakes from one to three. Lori’s primary responsibilities on a day to day basis were to take care of the snakes, such as feeding them and constructing their habitats. She also worked to reduce the stigma around ball pythons within her school, running an instagram account for them and working to introduce as many people as possible to the snakes. Outside of her snake breeding project, Lori actively participated in her school’s robotics teams and was a founding member of her school’s FRC team as well as the team’s outreach lead, running multiple workshops to introduce elementary-aged kids to robots and STEM, both within her school and in the surrounding community.
In her spare time, Lori enjoys writing poems and short stories as well as playing with her dog.