Standard Deviation EP4: The Gamble

Out of Patients with Matthew Zachary

Dr. Rachel Gatlin entered neuroscience with curiosity and optimism. Then came chaos. She started her PhD at the University of Utah in March 2020—right as the world shut down. Her lab barely existed. Her advisor was on leave. Her project focused on isolation stress in mice, and then every human on earth became her control group. Rachel fought through supply shortages, grant freezes, and the brutal postdoc job market that treats scientists like disposable parts. When her first offer vanished under a hiring freeze, she doubled down, rewrote her plan, and won her own NIH training grant. Her story is about survival in the most literal sense—how to keep your brain intact when the system built to train you keeps collapsing.

RELATED LINKS

• Dr. Rachel Gatlin on LinkedIn

• Dr. Gatlin’s Paper Preprint

• Dr. Eric Nestler on Wikipedia

• News Coverage: Class of 2025 – PhD Students Redefine Priorities

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