Rebecca is the primary full-time study coordinator for the Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN) at UCLA, an NIH-funded research study with the goal of improving patient health outcomes by aiding in the discovery and description of new genetic conditions and facilitating further research in rare diseases. Rebecca started her academic career at UCLA as an undergraduate and received a B.S. in Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics. She received her Master’s-level genetic counseling training and degree at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. In 2016, Rebecca started her genetic counseling career in the Pediatrics-Genetics division at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. In pediatrics, Rebecca coordinated and saw patients in the general genetics clinic, provided counseling for inpatient genetics consults, assisted with genetic testing following positive newborn screens, and led the 22q11.2 deletion clinic. Rebecca moved into research in pediatrics, working with the Urea Cycle Disorders consortium and the Carbaglu clinical trial. Rebecca transitioned to the UDN in April 2018 and oversees the project at UCLA, which involves the coordination of genome sequencing analysis, RNA sequencing analysis, data sharing and other means to aid in novel gene disorder, organizing complex clinical evaluations, and returning results to families. Rebecca’s professional interests include rare diseases and the effect on families with these conditions, genetic testing technology and improving diagnostic capabilities, variant curation, and patient understanding of advancing genetics techniques.
