Samantha is currently a sophomore at Cornell University after having transferred from SUNY Canton. Samantha worked under the tutelage of her mentor Josh Strable on using a reverse genetics approach to characterize and link a phenotype to the serine threonine protein kinase gene, which was identified as down-regulated in ragged seedling 2 (rgd2) mutant maize plants in a laser-capture microarray/microdissection. While working in the Scanlon lab, Samantha used molecular biology techniques such as DNA sequencing, PCR, gel electrophoresis, and DNA extractions.