Graduate Students

Dakshitha B Anandakum

Email:      dananda@emory.edu
Advisor:  Robert Liu

Research Interests: Dakshitha is interested in understanding how the brain processes sounds that are meaningful to us versus those that don’t hold any behavioral significance. Her dissertation focuses on plasticity in the auditory cortex for learned sounds that come to drive natural behaviors.

Lisa Meyer-Baese

Email:      lisa.meyer-baese@emory.edu
Advisor:  Dieter Jaeger

Research Interests: Lisa's project combines wide-field voltage imaging with fMRI to study brain dynamics in awake-behaving mice. 

Sean O'Connell

Email:      smoconn@emory.edu
Advisor:  Sam Sober

Research Interests: The main goal of Sean's project is to uncover new insights into the neural mechanisms of skilled motor behavior. Currently, he is developing a new protocol for collecting forelimb EMG recordings from rats during a complex behavioral task. He plans to eventually characterize different types of reaches and grasps with this EMG data and other kinematics using a range of computational techniques, including Latent Factor Analysis via Dynamical Systems (LFADS). Currently, he assists the lab with design and fabrication of electronic components for processing and acquisition of neural signals

Matthew Williams

Email:      mwil275@emory.edu
Advisor:  Sam Sober

Research Interests: Matt’s current research focuses on single motor unit control in mouse forelimbs.

Kyle Thomas

Email:      kthom88@emory.edu
Advisor:  Sam Sober

Research Interests:  Kyle’s research focuses on understanding how coordination in muscle commands, at the scale of motor units, contributes to the flexible control of locomotion.

Alexander Gulka

Email:      alexander.gulka@emory.edu
Advisor:  David Gorkin

Research Interests: The BRG1/BRM-associated factors (BAF) chromatin remodeling complexes play a critical role in the regulation of transcriptional programs through their function in establishing accessible chromatin at cis-regulatory elements (cREs). Alex is interested in the mechanisms and molecular features that govern recruitment of BAF to these cREs in cell-type and stimulus-specific manners. Additionally, he hopes to elucidate mechanisms by which mutations in BAF subunits lead to dysfunction and/or mislocalization of these complexes, with a specific focus on interrogating BAF mutations associated with human neurodevelopmental disease. 

Alex won the 2023-2024 GDBBS TATTO Teaching Award for his demonstration of excellence in teaching. 

Yonina Loskove

Email:      yonina.loskove@emory.edu
Advisor:  David Gorkin

Research Interests: XXXXXXX

Thomas O'Haren

Email:      thomas.edward.o'haren@emory.edu
Advisor:  Leila Rieder

Research Interests: Thomas is interested in how epigenetic marks initiate and maintain transcriptional regulation of genes necessary for proper embryonic development. The Rieder lab uses the canonical histone genes, which are bound by a suite of factors called the histone locus body, in the model system Drosophila melanogaster to investigate these processes.

Nicole Roos

Email:     nicole.roos@emory.edu
Advisor:  Leila Rieder

Research Interests: Nicole is interested in understanding cancer genetics, epigenetics, and mechanisms of DNA repair/regulation. Her most recent studies focus on how studying mutations in a chromatin remodeling protein called ATRX affect chromatin regulation and ATRX protein function.

Brianna Silver

Email:      brianna.silver@emory.edu
Advisor:  Roger Deal

Research Interests: Bri studies the role of the histone variant H2A.Z in the modulation of transcription in both stress and developmental contexts in the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana. By leveraging the inherent plasticity and responsiveness of plants, she induces transcriptional changes with the addition of exogenous hormones and/or environmental alterations, and studies the ability for genes to be turned on or off in the presence or absence of H2A.Z, its related chromatin remodelers, and post-translational modifications. H2A.Z is a highly conserved and indispensable histone variant across eukaryotic evolution, with ~80% sequence conservation shared between Arabidopsis and humans. Because of this, the results of her experiments not only provide important information for how plants respond to stress (an ever-growing need during climate change to ensure food security), but also may shed insight on how H2A.Z works more generally across eukaryotes, with relevancy to human disease such as cancer, where it is known to be commonly overexpressed.

Amber Coats

Email:      amber.nicole.coats@emory.edu
Advisor:  Katia Koelle

Research Interests: Amber is interested in how viruses evolve in response to selective pressures put in place by to the immune system. Her dissertation project focuses on the role that epistasis plays in human coronavirus evolution and incorporates approaches such as phylogenetic analyses, protein structural modeling, and mathematical modeling. She is currently a trainee in the Infectious Disease Across Scales Training Program at Emory University, and part of her dissertation work incorporates linking infectious disease evolution between within-host and between-host scales.

Brandon Berryhill

Email:     berryh@emory.edu
Advisor:  Bruce Levin

Research Interests: Brandon's research focuses on understanding the population and evolutionary dynamics of bacteriophage and their bacterial hosts. His dissertation will focus on the joint action of bacteriophage, antibiotics, and the innate immune system.

Brandon received the 2023 Graduate Program in Biology Academic and Professional Achievement Award.

Hymavathy Balasubramanian

Email:     hbalas2@emory.edu
Advisor:  Malavika Murugan

Research Interests: In the lab, Hyma is working towards identifying the extent of shared and distinct representations of social and non-social reward processing present in the reward circuitry and the computations that underlie communication between such representations.

Megan Bishop

Email:     megan.bishop@emory.edu
Advisor: Gordon J. Berman

Research Interests: Megan is interested in quantifying the behavioral repertoires of various species to better understand what subtle behavioral differences can tell us about neural evolution.

Benjamin Dykstra

Email:     bdykstr@emory.edu
Advisor:  Gordon Berman

Research Interests: Benjamin studies the neural substates of social recognition in mouse models. Specifically, he uses cellular resolution calcium imaging and novel computational techniques to determine how familiarity information is encoded and transformed from the hippocampus to the lateral septum.

Michael Hess

Email:     mhess3@emory.edu
Advisor:  Gordon Berman

Research Interests: Michael uses data-driven modeling approaches to evaluate the dynamical stability of the neuromuscular control underlying adaptive locomotion in animals. Using these models, he investigates how perturbations and dysfunctions in neural circuits of flies, mice, and humans contribute to locomotor stabilization mechanisms.

Jennifer Isaac

Email:     jsisaac@emory.edu
Advisor:  Malavika Murugan

Research Interests: In lab, Jennifer is interested in investigating the anatomical and functional changes in lateral septal connectivity in neurodegenerative mouse models.

Jarildy Javier

Email:      jarildy.javier@emory.edu
Advisor:  Malavika Murugan

Research Interests: Jarildy's thesis work is focused on using calcium imaging to understanding the neural substrates underlying pair bonding behavior in the prairie vole.

Taylor Kahl

Email:      taylor.marissa.kahl@emory.edu
Advisor:  Dieter Jaeger

Research Interests:  Taylor is a computational neuroscientist specializing in biophysically detailed neuronal modeling.  Her research interests are in understanding movement control, movement disorders, and movement rehabilitation.  Currently, she is modeling the activity of L5b pyramidal neurons in motor cortex during movement execution, and analyzing how these neurons integrate inputs from the motor thalamus and other movement-related areas, in normal and Parkinsonian conditions.

Sonia Karkare 

Email:     skarkar@emory.edu
Advisor: Malavika Murugan

Research Interests: Sonia is interested in understanding reward-related behaviors and processing in the lateral septum, a subcortical region that has been implicated in a wide range of social and nonsocial behaviors.

Lauren Lang 

Email:     lauren.lang@emory.edu
Advisor: Gordon J. Berman

Research Interests: Lauren is interested in the pursuing research that helps determine the etiology of mental illnesses. Until this lofty goal can be realized, she hopes to identify more effective targets for treating distressing symptoms, to determine methodologies for more effective patient-drug matching, and to develop novel interventions. She wishes to bring a patient-centered approach to her research, prioritizing the needs and wishes of the patients themselves.

Leila May Pascual

Email:      leila.may.pascual@emory.edu
Advisor:  Sam Sober

Research Interests: Leila studies how the motor system develops patterns of activity to execute reliable and precise skilled behaviors. She combines in vivo electrophysiology recordings with information theoretic tools to understand how neural patterns are reshaped across song acquisition in juvenile Bengalese finches.

Marco Pena Garcia

Email:     marco.pena.garcia@emory.edu
Advisor: Anita Devineni, Gordon J. Berman

Research Interests: Marco is interested in the single neuron dynamics underlying higher cognitive processes such as memory and decision making.

Trinity Pruitt

Email:     trinity.pruitt@emory.edu
Advisor: Anita Devineni

Research Interests: Trinity's research interests focus on understanding sensory processing and how it influences flexible behavior. Specifically, she uses Drosophila as a model system to understand how and where aversive tastes modulate feeding in the sugar-PER circuit. 

Kofi Vordzorgbe

Email:      jvordzo@emory.edu
Advisor:  Sam Sober

Research Interests: Kofi’s research interest primarily rests in understanding how the brain organizes its neural signals in the control of behavior and in cognitive processes. Understanding these processes in the healthy state can shed light on the bases of the diverse symptoms that arise in the event of neurological diseases.

Carmen Alvarez

Email:      carmen.alvarez@emory.edu
Advisor:   Nic Vega

Research Interests: Carmen's research centers on phenotypic heterogeneity and its relationship with species interactions. She studies these dynamics using soil bacteria M. Oxydans and C. gleum and the model organism C. elegans. By examining long-term interactions with the worm, she aims to understand how these interactions influence the evolutionary trajectories of the bacteria. Additionally, she explores the impact of long-term interactions with S. Marcescens affect traits within populations of C. elegans.

Lynda Bradley

Email:      lynda.michele.bradley@emory.edu
Advisor:  Dave Civitello, Lance A. Waller

Research Interests: Lynda researches the effect of resource pulses on host-parasite dynamics.

Mackenzie Hoogshagen

Email:      mackenzie.hoogshagen@emory.edu
Advisors:  Japp de Roode, David Civitello

Research Interests:  Mackenzie's research focuses on chemical ecology and energy budget modeling. She is interested in understanding how climate change may alter host-parasite interactions, and she uses monarch butterflies, their milkweed plants and their protozoan parasites as a model system.

Mitchell Kendzel

Email:      mitchell.kendzel@emory.edu
Advisors:  Jaap de Roode, Lance A. Waller

Research Interests: Mitchell’s research focuses on movement ecology and sensory biology. His dissertation will use computer simulations and the monarch butterfly as a model system to study how an animal’s navigation strategy influences their used migratory pathways to inform conservation efforts.

Ben Lukubye 

Email:     ben.lukubye@emory.edu
Advisors:  Dave Civitello

Research Interests: Ben is interested in understanding the biology and population structure dynamics of both hosts and parasites causing neglected tropical diseases like schistosomiasis on different scales and how these structures affect disease transmission and efficacy of control strategies at both spatial and temporal scales.

Michelle McCauley

Email:      michelle.anne.mccauley@emory.edu
Advisor:  Levi Morran

Research Interests: XXXXXXX

Yeongseon Park

Email:      yeongseon.park@emory.edu
Advisor:  Katia Koelle

Research Interests: Yeongseon is interested in using genome sequences to understand the population and evolutionary dynamics of viral infectious diseases. Her interest started in how complex population dynamics of viruses causing infectious disease shape the genetic variation of the virus population and how can we use that to infer transmission dynamics. She is currently working on the development of an inference approach using the temporal pattern of genetic diversity.

Nadia Raytselis

Email:      nraytse@emory.edu
Advisor:  Dave Civitello

Research Interests:  Nadia's research focuses on the ecology of complex life cycle parasites. In her work, she uses both empirical and theoretical methods across ecological scales. Her dissertation will determine the ecological plausibility of fish as a secondary intermediate host of Guinea Worm Disease (GWD), specifically assessing the role of fish predation and its potential contrasting effects on GWD transmission. This work will elucidate the importance of fish in GW transmission in endemic countries, allowing for improved eradication efforts and an expansion of our understanding of the eradication of complex life cycle parasites.

Jacoby Robinson

Email:      jacoby.robinson@emory.edu
Advisor:  Nicole Gerardo

Research Interests: Jacoby is interested in host-parasite interactions and dynamics spanning the scale from organismal to population levels, fungal genomics.

Ananya Saha

Email:      asaha33@emory.edu
Advisor:  Katia Koelle

Research Interests: Ananya is interested in studying viral dynamics and evolution across scales in the context of host immunity, including innate and adaptive (humoral and cellular) immunity. Understanding how immunity acts on viral replication and infection at different scales (within host vs between host) has implications in designing better therapeutic and public health strategies. She is enthusiastic about applying ideas from population genetics, evolutionary biology, and immunology together to gain insights into these topics. She has recently joined the lab and has been working on understanding T cell driven selection of Influenza A virus.

Andrew Sieben

Email:     andrew.j.sieben@emory.edu
Advisor: Dave Civitello

Research Interests: Andrew studies the socio-ecology of schistosomiasis using ecological theory, mathematical models, field experiments, and qualitative research methods. He is currently investigating ecologically based interventions that simultaneously reduce schistosomiasis transmission risk while improving water quality for community use in Tanzania.e lab and has been working on understanding T cell driven selection of Influenza A virus.

Emily Smith

Email:      ebsmit4@emory.edu
Advisor:  Levi Morran

Research Interests: Emily researches mating system evolution, the evolution of sex, host-parasite coevolution, co-infection.

Kanishk Jain

Email:      kanishk.jain@emory.edu
Advisor:  Gordon Berman

Research Interests:  Kanishk’s research focuses on creating mathematical representations of free behavior in animals using tools from physics, mathematics and deep learning. He uses these quantitative, multi-timescale descriptions to understand neural underpinnings of behavior.

Rajpreet Kaur

Email:      rajpreet.kaur@emory.edu
Advisor:  Gordon Berman

Research Interests: Rajpreet is interested in studying animal behavior over long timescales using machine learning algorithms to construct dynamical models.