Viktoriya Zhuravleva

Tori Zhuravleva is the Associate Director of Strategic Research Development at Columbia University’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. In this role, Tori assists trainees and principal investigators with the writing, editing, and strategic planning of grant applications; maintains up-to-date proposal checklists and non-scientific component templates; and creates content for the Research Development website.

In September 2021, Tori joined the Pre-Award Team immediately after earning their Ph.D. from the Neurobiology and Behavior Program at Columbia University. In Dr. Clarissa Waites’s Lab, Tori studied the roles of stress and the GTPase Rab35 in the protein trafficking pathways of the Alzheimer’s Disease proteins APP and BACE1 (read the paper here). Tori earned their Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where they graduated with highest honors for their Senior Thesis on the role of macrophages in HIV-induced neurotoxicity, under the mentorship of Dr. Rick Meeker.

In addition to scientific research and getting it funded, Tori is passionate about mentoring and helping people navigate career transitions. Through Minds Matter NYC, they have mentored four high schoolers applying to college, and with Cientifico Latino’s Graduate Student Mentorship Initiative, they mentored a college student applying for neurobiology Ph.D. programs. In their current position, Tori is always happy to help trainees navigate to the next stage of their careers. They also enjoy teaching group fitness classes, traveling around the world, and exploring NYC.