TNT Scholar: 2024 – 2025
I study how the human brain controls gait and balance while navigating the world around us. Using immersive virtual reality to simulate real-world scenarios, I examine how intracranial and scalp electrophysiology signals can predict the motor behaviors that keep the body upright and moving. I aim to leverage these neural markers to guide rehabilitation strategies for improving gait function in neurological populations at risk for falls.
Mentor: Katy Cross, M.D., Ph.D.
TNT Scholar: 2024 – 2025
My research combines insights from neuroscience, psychology, and computer science to understand human learning and memory. I am interested in how the brain supports working memory and context-dependent statistical learning where temporal regularities are consistent within an environment but interfere between environments. I use machine learning algorithms to relate brain activity to behavioral measures, and I model behavioral results with neural networks.
Mentor: Jesse Rissman, Ph.D.
TNT Scholar: 2024 – 2025
I am interested in using neuromodulating technologies, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), to treat traumatic brain injuries. We are testing whether TMS can reset frontoamygdala circuitry to extinguish fear avoidance behavior, autonomic reactivity, and sleep disturbances that prolong symptoms after concussion. Using machine learning, in the largest study of its kind with the most continuous data, I will develop an algorithm that uses at-home measures of autonomic function (heart rate variability (HRV), heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygenation, and sleep/rest temperature) from the Oura Ring to predict in-lab autonomics (HRV and pupillary dynamics before, during, and after TMS and an exposure task as well as central autonomic activity in fMRI). I will develop a software that transforms consumer-based wearable data into biomarkers to predict concussion recovery and guide treatment for patients with prolonged symptoms.
Mentor: Kevin Bickart, M.D., Ph.D.
TNT Scholar: 2022 – 2024
As a National Science Foundation funded student, I work on developing novel microscopy techniques to probe multisensory integration in the Drosophila Melanogaster brain. Similar to the mammalian hippocampus, the central complex may serve as a critical indexing and integration site to coordinate spatial navigation. Building off my previous work on the UCLA Miniscope Project, I will refine a new two-photon microscope capable of patterned optogenetic stimulation in fruit flies. I hope to manipulate the neural circuits that coordinate synaptic plasticity in the central complex to reveal how vision, odor, and atmospheric polarized light integrate so that flies may produce complex navigation paths while traversing the earth.
Mentor: Mark Frye, Ph.D.
