About
A California native, I studied Neuroscience as an undergraduate at UC San Diego, where I worked on learning and memory in the lab of Anirvan Ghosh. I then purchased my first pair of winter boots in pursuit of a PhD in Neurobiology at Harvard, under the mentorship of Amar Sahay. My dissertation examined how oxytocin, an evolutionarily conserved neuromodulator, enables social memory by engaging hippocampal circuits.
I am now a BRAIN Initiative K99/R00 postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Weizhe Hong at UCLA. My work uses in vivo cellular resolution calcium imaging, machine learning, computer vision, and circuit dissection tools to understand how emergent properties arise at the level of multi-animal groups that are not present in individuals alone. My goal is to contribute to a fuller understanding of the neural principles that govern collective behavior by describing how social groups coordinate their behavior to respond to environmental challenges together.
Outside of the lab, you can find me running, hiking, finding good coffee, and engaging in community development programs aimed towards the moral empowerment of young people.