Zoe Ivan

Hi! My name is Zoe, I am a 4th year undergraduate student in Neuroscience and Mental Health at Carleton University. As a kid I was a (clumsy) figure skater who had few concussions which led me to study neuroscience, specifically concussions in the paediatric population. 

My love of science started young with immigrant grandparents who left communist Czechoslovakia so my grandfather could pursue his doctorate as an animal scientist. He told me stories of his travels, visiting labs around the world, and gave me a microscope to look at things around the house. With my grandparents and parents in computer science and engineering, it’s been a natural atmosphere for cultivating my curiosity in science and research .

In high school I started a co-op with the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) where I learned a lot about the health care system and medicine, while also getting to bake cookies and play Minecraft with some kiddos. Since then, for the past almost 6 years I continued to volunteer and now work as a research assistant in concussion research, emergency medicine and mental health at CHEO. I am currently working on a project to streamline the data collection for an inpatient youth mental health program with future directions of analyzing the program's efficiency. I will also be looking at neurological sex differences in concussion recovery for my senior thesis next year.

A fun fact about me is that I like to scuba dive and am only slightly afraid of sharks. I was a swimmer in high-school and my happy place is anywhere with a beach where I can swim for hours (and hopefully not burn). With the lack of warm, sandy beaches in Ottawa, I coach special olympics swimming where I combine my love of the sport with my passion for working with people.

While my curiosity has led me to many different fields in research, I am excited to focus on one project this summer in mitochondria research with Dr. Ana Andreazza and the Mitochondria Innovation Initiative within the Amgen Scholars Program.