Dr. Mead is a neuroscientist who got a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1996. She was a postdoctoral Grass Fellow at the MBL in 1998 where she developed an interest in marine models. Dr. Mead returned to the MBL during the fall of 2008 as an MBL Fellow for a sabbatical leave in order to continue her interest in how grass shrimp are able to sense their environment, smelling the water in order to adapt. She continued her studies of olfaction during the summer of 2009 in a lab in the Marine Resources Center, with financial assistance from the MBL Associates.