Erika is a musician, podcast host, neuroscientist, and writer. All four endeavors have a common basis in creativity and communication. As frontwoman for Working Breed she sings; plays trombone, trumpet and musical saw; and writes songs for their original, eclectic art rock. As host and creator of the podcast Petticoat Rule, she explores the mystery of productive creativity through interviews with successful women in the music industry. As a neuroscientist, she is a specialist in analysis of electromagnetic brain responses collected by a highly specialized MEG (magnetoencephalograpy) machine. With this data, she works in Carnegie Mellon‘s Machine Learning Department with Dr. Tom Mitchell where she collects and analyzes data, training computer algorithms to predict what words a participant is thinking about based on their brain data. She also works at the UPMC Brain Mapping Center where she assists neurosurgeons by developing pre-surgical mapping procedures so as to provide individualized brain function maps of tumor and epilepsy patients. Finally, as a writer, she is just getting started… and having fun!