Arula Ratnakar is a neuroscience lab technician at Boston University. She wants to become an astronaut someday. The neuroscience research she is currently conducting is on the effects of stress on the brain and on one's ability to complete cognitive tasks, which she is interested in because it applies to astronauts, who will undergo immense stressors like isolation and confinement. She wants to answer questions about the effects of microgravity on the vestibular system, or on navigation, or how neuroinflammation changes in outer space, or on how galactic cosmic radiation will affect the nervous system during long duration travels.