Anika Jain is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She pursued her undergraduate studies at Panjab University, India, completing a B.E. in Biotechnology in 2007. She is currently working with Prof. Martha Gillette towards furthering understanding of the processes that define and modulate the connectivity of neurons in the mammalian brain. She is specifically interested in examining the factors influencing the development of dendritic filopodia, which are dynamic, thread-like protrusions of the cell membrane of neuronal dendrites, using microfluidic culture systems. When not peering through the microscope at neurons, She can be found digging deeper into matter, following recent developments in the field of particle physics.