"Veronica in Depth"

I was born in New Brunswick, NJ on August 19, 1980 to two loving parents, John and Suzanne Franco.  We soon moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where my sister Vanessa was born on January 4, 1983.  We lived for some time in Bloomington, Indiana and then moved to Cincinnati, Ohio where I spent my middle and high school years.     My Dad is a Computer Science Professor at the University of Cincinnati.  My mom is a tech coordinator for the Wyoming City School District (yes, Wyoming the town, not the state!).  To the right is a picture of them at a ball they recently attended.  Aren't they cute?!?  Tee hee hee!  While living in Cincinnati, I attednded High School at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy.

    I decided to go to Chapel Hill for my undergraduate education.  I was a BS Biology major and Chemistry minor, and I graduated in three years.  No small feat!  During my three years as an undergrad, I lived on the Living Well floor in Ehringhaus dorm, where I was the head coordinator.   Here is the semi-annual self evaluation if you are interested in the basics of the program.  Living Well has provided me with some great friends, and even a husband!  I think of all the things I have been a part of in my life, Living Well is one of my favorite.

    Brad and I were married on May 26, 2002.  We had a great time and like to think that everyone else who attended did, too!  Here is a recent picture of us at Brad's graduation in May of 2003.

    I am currently in the Genetics and Molecular Biology Curricilum here at Chapel Hill.  As stated on the intro page, I worked as an undergrad in Jeff Dangl's lab with Petra Epple.  I also did a rotation in the Bourret Lab, and have joined the Kieber lab.     

As a child, I almost always had a pet guinea pig.  I LOVE guinea pigs!  Some people mistakenly believe they are rodents, but they are not!  However, our first apartment did not allow guinea pigs.  So...  we adopted two cats, as seen to the left, from the Orange County Animal Shelter.  Their names are Saleen (the orange male) and Willow (the female Torti).  They are a lot of fun!  They like to chase each other across the apartment, and they think that anything under a blanket is actually something to be attacked.

For my 22nd birthday, Brad didn't know what to get me.  So he decided to get me some guinea pigs!  We went to the animal shelter, but at that time there were no guinea pigs there.  Had I only known that guinea pigs are frequent visitors at the shelter!  In fact, my friend Susan fosters many of them.  Anyway, we ended up buying two baby guineas from Petsmart.  They are both girls.  The one with the black face is Zoot, and the other one is Dingo.  This is after the twins from Castle Anthrax in Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail.

Soon after getting the guinea pigs, I started volunteering at the shelter.  It wasn't too long before I (and Brad eventually) fell in love with a dog!  So, we brought Sabrina home with us.  She is a Weimeraner/Pit mix.  She is very loving and tries hard to do what we want.  She came into the shelter as a stray, was adoped out but had behavior problems, so ended up back at the shelter.  She is doing better now, though, and she loves sleeping on our bed! she is currently working on getting us to adopt a little brother or sister for her.  But we'll see about that...

    Another result of volunteering at the animal shelter is that we adopted a Tokay Gecko.  He was very sick and neglected when we got him.  He is now doing really well!  While at a reptile fair to buy stuff for his cage, I won another reptile in a raffle.  We named our new Emerald Swift Esmerelda.   You can learn more about them on the pets page.