Susana has long been interested in neurologic conditions, which led her to complete a summer internship at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dr. Maria Chahrour's lab. There she worked on identifying substrates that are unregulated in autism spectrum disorder.
Her experience in these labs motivated her to pursue a PhD, where she could further investigate the role of genetics in neurologic conditions. She chose to do so at the University of Colorado Anschutz in Dr. Caroline Dias' lab. Her research focuses on investigating the molecular and cellular mechanisms that underlie Fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS) and Fragile X-associated neuropsychiatric disorders (FXAND) in female FMR1 premutation carriers with the use of genomic and single cell approaches.