Allison (Ally) Girasole grew up in Buffalo, New York, and attended Ithaca College, where she was a field hockey player. She then worked in the labs of Peter Kloppenburg (University of Cologne) and Zayd Khaliq (NIH), studying midbrain dopamine neurons and their connections using slice electrophysiology. She started the UCSF Neurosciences Graduate Program in 2013 and joined the Nelson lab in 2014. Her current project is focused on cellular and microcircuit mechanisms of levodopa-induced dyskinesia. She is an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship awardee and also became a UCSF Discovery Fellow in 2015. In addition, she is a passionate slice electrophysiologist and has won awards for deepest or most invisible cell patched. In her spare time, she enjoys triathlons, jelly beans, cycling, and kale salads.