Dr. Bales earned her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Florida State University in 2018 where she studied the role of gustatory cortex in taste detection in Dr. Alan Spector’s laboratory. Following her graduate work, she became a postdoctoral researcher at Vanderbilt University in Dr. Julio Ayala’s lab where she studied glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and its role in feeding in the context of stress and obesity. In 2022, she took another role as a postdoc at FSU in Dr. Linda Rinaman’s lab where she studied GLP-1 in the hindbrain and its role in food intake, anxiety-like behaviors, and early life stress. In 2025, she became Teaching Faculty in the Program in Neuroscience and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Neuroscience at FSU.