Apaala is a Biomedical Engineer with experience in Neural Engineering and Brain-Machine Interfaces. She received a PhD in Biological and Biosystems Engineering from the University of Missouri. Her doctoral research combined systems neuroscience and neural engineering approaches to investigate basal ganglia-prefrontal circuits underlying reinforcement learning and decision making, while developing minimally invasive optogenetic neuromodulation strategies for bulbar motor dysfunction in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. This research employed integrated behavioral neuroscience, electrophysiology, optical neuromodulation, and computational approaches to study neural circuit function and develop neurotechnology platforms for translational therapeutics. Apaala joined the lab in April 2026, where she is leveraging these diverse research skills to study primate perception and cognition.