Maya is a senior Animal Science major in the College of Agriculture, Health, and Natural Resources from Bridgewater, New Jersey. Maya works in UConn’s Connecticut Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory, has served as an undergraduate teaching assistant for Anatomy and Physiology of Animals, and is a mentor in the Women in STEM program.

Maya’s research experience includes being involved in both on-campus and off-campus opportunities.

At UConn, Maya has worked in Dr. Mary Anne Amalaradjou's Animal Science lab  doing work with probiotics. Her UConn IDEA Grant project will establish quantitative data on muscle development in chicken embryos and how probiotics, or “good” bacteria, can improve muscle growth in chickens used for meat. This project has increasing importance in animal agriculture as the FDA recently banned the use of antibiotics as growth promoters, due to concern for antibiotic resistance in bacteria.

Off campus, Maya recently completed a summer research fellowship at the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, where she worked to learn about a newly discovered parvovirus affecting Red Pandas at the San Diego Zoo.