Stephanie Gannon's passion for neuroscience blossomed at Governor's School her junior year of high school, where a course on neuroscience fascinated her with its blend of psychology and biology.

"I really loved the blend of the sciences of biology and psychology in the field of neuroscience," she said.

That passion led her to the University of Arkansas, where she earned bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees. Now, she's putting her advanced education to work outside the lab using her graduate training to improve how millions of people interact with Walmart's digital platforms.

Gannon, who earned master's and doctoral degrees in experimental psychology from the U of A, serves as a principal design researcher at Walmart, where she ensures the Fortune 1 company's third-party seller platform is user-friendly to its diverse customers and sellers. Her time spent researching how the brain reacts to different stimuli, coupled with the graduate entrepreneurship certificate she earned through the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, gave her the foundational knowledge, research acumen and business mindset to thrive in her role.

"The graduate entrepreneurship certificate I added was amazing - I learned the basic startup principles that I still use at Walmart today," she said. "I also learned a ton of research methods in my doctoral program and got a lot of experience dealing with data. In the world of Walmart, being able to wrap your head around big datasets and trying to combine quantitative results and qualitative pieces - it's something I use and do every day, and it's a good skillset to have."

Gannon embarked on her neuroscience research as an undergraduate, when she began working with a psychology faculty member conducting research into visual neuroscience. After earning two bachelor's degrees in biology and psychology, Gannon began exploring graduate school and found that her undergraduate faculty mentor was looking for graduate students in their lab.

But after earning her master's degree, Gannon was at a crossroads. Her faculty member exited academia, and she wasn't sure if she should continue pursuing a doctoral degree. Ultimately, she decided to switch mentors and stay in school. Her graduate studies were also enhanced by her earning a Distinguished Doctoral Fellowship, a nationally competitive fellowship designed to attract top-tier graduate students to the U of A.

"No other graduate program I interviewed for had something at that level, where you get school paid for and get a stipend," she said. "And being in NWA, that stipend is actually worth something. It's not just going toward living expenses."

As she pursued her doctoral degree, Gannon continued to keep an eye on the future and consider her career path. But it wasn't until she attended a career fair and spoke with Walmart representatives that she set onto a career path of applying her doctoral studies in the private sector.

Gannon secured a paid internship with Walmart's Store No. 8, then the company's startup incubator, where the broad scope of the area exposed her to different facets of the company.

 "Everyone was so great about networking and talking and helping you learn more about the company," she said.

That internship led to a full-time role with the company, starting as a senior product manager in Store No. 8 and culminating in her current role leading design research for Walmart's business-to-business marketplace, a position she started in 2024. Since then, she has continued to utilize her education from the U of A to make a large-scale impact at the retailer.

"It's really fun that at Walmart, the data I collect then results in changes to the experience for millions of customers and thousands of marketplace sellers," she said. "So that impact is just so awesome, I feel like that background in science and rigor really helps me know the ways I'm doing my work are valid and safe to scale."