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Originally from the beautiful garden state of New Jersey, I swapped coasts to join the labs of Sama Ahmed and John Tuthill at the University of Washington. Here in Seattle, I am studying the neural control of the flight power muscles in Drosophila. I am interested in how the brain dynamically regulates power output as flies fly around. Outside of the lab, I'm on a quest to hike, run, and climb my way through the pacific northwest!

I transitioned from an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry to Neuroscience and am currently a first-year Ph.D. student in the lab of Dr. Vatsala Thirumalai at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore, India. Our lab investigates the neural basis of movement during development and adulthood, using the larval zebrafish as a model system. I recently joined the lab and started off working on exploring the neuromodulatory effects of noradrenaline on the firing activity of Purkinje neurons in the cerebellum of larval zebrafish. Outside the lab, I enjoy reading, cooking, and caring for my plants.

I am a second-year PhD student in Dr. Eric Tytell's Lab at Tufts University. I am broadly interested in animals' visuomotor behaviors and my research focuses on the optomotor response in zebrafish and swimming kinematics during vertical maneuvers. My research goal is to develop a better understanding on how directionally-selective input in the visual system transforms into different behavioral output. Outside the lab, I enjoy crochet and cooking

Interpreting how diverse, flexible, and evolutionarily-shaped animal behaviors are relayed by neural circuits fundamentally charms me. With my love of naturalistic behaviors and large amounts of neural data, I'm working with transparent larval zebrafish in Dr. Eva Naumann's lab at Duke University as a Ph.D. student. Here, my project focuses on the neural mechanisms of action selection as the animal explore competing visual stimuli that drives distinct ethologically relevant behaviors: hunting or optomotor responses

Zachary (Zach) Slimak is a scientist and educator from Oberlin, Ohio, currently based in Cleveland. With lifelong roots in animal care and a deep connection to 4-H, Zach brings a unique perspective to his research in biology and neuroscience. He graduated from Oberlin College with a double major in Biology and Neuroscience and a minor in Chemistry, earning high honors in Neuroscience for his work on multisensory integration in individuals with autistic traits and musical training. His academic interests spanned topics from plant somatic evolution to independent research on chicken behavior and genetics. While at Oberlin, Zach was an active leader on departmental committees and initiatives that promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion. These experiences laid the foundation for a career grounded in scientific inquiry, community engagement, and mentorship.

After graduation, Zach worked as a microbiology research associate and lab manager at Kenyon College, contributing to projects on bacterial evolution, microbiome ecology, and antibiotic resistance. He then returned to Oberlin College to coordinate inclusive research initiatives in the Office of Undergraduate Research, mentoring first-generation and underrepresented students in STEM. Currently, Zach is pursuing a PhD at Case Western Reserve University in the Fox Lab, where he studies how insect sensory systems—particularly halteres—modulate flight and behavior. His work combines high-speed videography, electrophysiology, and behavioral studies to explore how multiple sensory inputs are integrated, aligning his passions for animal behavior, neurobiology, and evolutionary biology.

I am a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Rudolph Lab at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where my research focuses on the role of neuropeptide signaling in cerebellar interneurons. I'm especially interested in how neural circuit dynamics are coordinated both within individual brain regions and across broader neural networks. Before starting my graduate work at Einstein, I earned B.Sc. in Biochemistry and Psychology from the University of Idaho. Outside the lab, I enjoy reading, hiking, and exploring new places through travel.

My interests lie in understanding neural circuits and how they contribute to brain physiology. Initially, my undergraduate training began studying cell death signaling and its non-canonical role in neuroinflammatory processes. This training provided me with a strong background in molecular neuroscience, with which I chose to further pursue during my PhD at the University of Virginia. My doctoral research broadly focuses on understanding how oscillations are generated in the brain. In Dr. Mark Beenhakker’s lab I study absence epilepsy as a model for understanding rhythmogenesis and use silicon probes to record neural activity. In addition to my experimental approaches, I am using machine learning and modeling to identify neural circuit states that are more vulnerable to produce oscillations.

I am a third-year Ph.D. student in the Biological Sciences Graduate Program at UC San Diego, working in the Lovett-Barron Lab. My research focuses on the neural and molecular mechanisms underlying behavioral suppression during acoustic habituation in larval zebrafish. I use whole-brain two-photon calcium imaging and quantitative behavioral assays to investigate how neuromodulatory signaling shapes sensory processing and motor output during learning.

William Botta is PhD candidate in Biology with a concentration in Ecology and Evolution. He got his B.S. in Marine Biology at the University of Rhode Island and his Master's in Marine Science at the University of New England studying aggression behavior in the European Green Crab. He is currently studying mass panic behavior in zebrafish in the Swarm lab and the Severi Lab at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. His main research interests are in intraspecies and interspecies behavior and in community ecology, with special interests in manta rays, coral reefs, and the deep sea.

I am a 3rd year PhD student at Thomas Frank's lab. My current PhD projects are centered around understanding how olfactory valence is encoded in the zebrafish larva brain and how it is modified by development and experience. I am broadly interested in the dynamics of nervous systems, and I believe that by investigating diverse species - beyond model organisms - will get us closer to identifying general principles of brain computation. Besides, the animal kingdom is full of quirky, magical things waiting to be discovered!

Mikaela is a second year PhD candidate in Dr. Tom Clandinin's lab at Stanford University. She originally grew up in Texas and rural Louisiana with her Cajun family running around catching lizards and racing crawdads. After she earned my B.S. at St. Edward’s University in Austin, she worked on a range of projects from studying the foraging behavior of red harvester ants to the effects of aging on neural stem cells in the brain. Now, in the Clandinin lab, she plans to combine her interests in animal behavior and neurobiology in asking questions about how we define sleep and it’s functioning within the brain using the fruit fly model.

Rishika Mohanta is a Graduate Student at The Rockefeller University, New York. She is jointly mentored by Dr. Vanessa Ruta and Dr. Daniel Kronauer. Her graduate research focuses on a comparative understanding of behavioral and neural computations underlying olfactory navigation across fruit flies and army ants.

Mary is a second year PhD student in the department of Integrative Anatomical Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine. She Received her B.S. in Exercise Science at the University of California-Irvine. Mary is interested in understanding the mechanics and level of motor control that allow organisms to navigate complex environments. Her research experience during her undergraduate studies focused on steady-state locomotion on level terrain. Her current aim is to expand this understanding to more complex conditions that better represent how organisms encounter their environment. She is currently studying the mechanics of kangaroo rats hopping on uneven terrain.

Mitali is currently a PhD Student in Prof. Sanjay Sane's lab at the National Centre For Biological Sciences in India. She did her Bachelors in Microbiology from Ruia College in Mumbai and then a Masters in Human Disease Genetics at the Centre for Human Genetics in Bangalore. For her PhD, she is studying how mosquitoes perform controlled landings on hosts. Rapid visual transduction is required by insects to perform motor outputs on the order of a few wing strokes i.e. a few milliseconds. At low light levels, visual input is compromised and can affect the speed and precision with which motor outputs are performed. She is exploring whether mosquitoes engage multiple sensory modalities to compensate for the lack of rapid visual input during landing at low light levels. For this, she films the landings of Anopheles stephensi - a crepuscular mosquito, on host-like targets using high speed cameras and infra-red lightings. Outside the lab she likes to cook, watch movies, and teach.

Ignitius is a PhD candidate from the Behavioral Neurophysiology and Synapse Biology laboratory at the department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences (CBS), Louisiana State University under the mentorship of Dr. Olalekan Ogundele. Our lab focuses on the neural and synaptic mechanisms that regulate learning and decision-making. He is studying the neural mechanisms underlying valency encoding and its implications for stress-linked disorders. He is interested in learning new techniques and expanding my research interests in other animals.

Paola is currently a 4th-year PhD student in the Neuroscience program at Washington University St. Louis. As a biologist, she has always been fascinated by the beauty and complexity of nature. In particular, what captivates her most is the nervous system. Shes extremely interested in how behavior emerges from the interplay between molecules, neurons and interconnected neural networks. Currently, she studies circadian rhythms, the internal clock that helps organisms anticipate daily environmental changes. More specifically, she studies the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), the central pacemaker in mammals. She aims to understand how molecular, cellular, and network properties work together to generate and synchronize circadian rhythms. With this, she hopes to understand better of how our brains keep time and how this timing shapes behavior and connection with the world around us.

Paula is a master’s student in the “Developmental, Neural, and Behavioral Biology” program at the University of Göttingen. Her focus is on neurobiology, with additional interests in behavioral biology and bioinformatics. Currently, she is rotating through different labs, learning about various neural systems, techniques, and model organisms.

Following her apprenticeship as a physiotherapist in Hamburg, she completed her undergraduate studies in biological sciences at the University of Rostock. During this time, she worked as a tutor for “Principles of Genetics“ (Prof. Schröder) and “Physiology of Microorganisms“ (Prof. Basen). For her bachelor’s thesis, she studied power muscle activation in Aedes aegypti in Michael Dickinson’s lab, co-supervised by Prof. Lehmann (Rostock) and Samuel Whitehead (Caltech).