Students

I am interested in studying the molecular mechanisms that contribute to healthy brain development, as well as abnormal brain development often underlying neurological and psychiatric illness. I hope to study various factors that influence development, including genetics, function of other organ systems, and diverse environmental inputs.

Research interest - Regulation of synapse development, function, and plasticity

Development and function of neural circuits

I am broadly interested in a computational and circuit-level understanding of sensorimotor systems. Specifically, I am interested in how motor information interacts with sensory processing to drive perception and behavior.

I graduated from Yale College in 2012 with a bachelor's degree in cognitive science. There, I completed a senior project, advised by Brian Scholl, that investigated a relationship between eye movements and memory. I have also conducted psychology research with Daniel Richardson at University College London, and with Marcia Johnson at Yale. Beyond many interests within psychology, I enjoy music and dance -- and I have studied and performed traditional and contemporary West African dance.

I am interested in studying how sensorimotor information is encoded in the cerebellar cortex and how this level of processing is impacted by neuromodulation.

I am interested in studying network level neural dynamics, dissecting sensory information pathways, and modeling simple neural circuits with cortical computing algorithms. Ultimately, I hope to combine quantitative neural modeling approaches, various dimensional experiment techniques, and applications based on neural theories to develop a systematic understanding of how the brain works, why it works, and whether it can be improved.

My research interests include neural networks and signaling as well as their pathophysiology in diseases such as Parkinson's and epilepsy. I am further interested in studying novel techniques, especially electrical stimulation, to treat these diseases.

Generally, I'm interested in how interactions between individual neurons and neural systems shape perception and cognition. Currently, I'm investigating how response properties of single neurons and neural populations change during concurrent presentation of multiple stimuli. I'm also quite interested in analyzing/modeling neural networks as recurrent dynamical systems.

My research interests are about the functions of activity-dependent regulation of chromatin at gene enhancers in neurons in vivo.

I aim to investigate specialized routing of visual Information from primary visual cortex (V1) to higher areas to guide visual tasks in mice. 

I am interested in cell surface and secreted molecular cues which guide the development of neural circuits in the retina. Additionally, I want to understand the signaling pathways downstream of these cues that ultimately activate the cytoskeleton.

I am interested in finding and understanding the molecular factors that instruct neurons to wire into circuits. I want to study the function of the molecules involved in circuit formation and the consequence of misconnection in the retina through genetic and biochemical manipulations.