Personal Statement
It was toward the end of high school when I discovered the excitement of seeking to understand the brain. Specifically, the spark for me came with the realization that the intense emotions evoked by listening to music — joy, grief, angst — originate from tiny fluctuations of air pressure entering the ear. How can the brain create such rich, subjective experiences from a one-dimensional signal?
In my first year of undergrad at Brown University, I filled my schedule with courses related to that question. I was hooked and went on to concentrate in neuroscience. I completed my Ph.D. at New York University working with Dan Sanes. My dissertation investigated temporal coding schemes in the olfactory bulb and in the auditory cortex, using single-cell electrophysiological data combined with computational analyses. During grad school, I discovered that communicating about science provided a different flavor of challenge and gratification complementary to that of performing research. After grad school, I set out to build skills in teaching and mentorship, first as an adjunct instructor at Santa Clara University and then as a Teaching Assistant Professor at West Virginia University. These experiences solidified my love of working with undergraduate students.
My role at Harvard combines my favorite aspects of these prior positions. As a concentration advisor, I work with the Class of 2026 Neuroscience Concentrators on shaping their academic and professional paths. As an instructor, I lead an introductory course on computational neuroscience. Computational tools are becoming a larger part of contemporary neuroscience research, but they still have an intimidating reputation. A major goal of the course is to make these tools accessible both at conceptual and practical levels to students with a variety of backgrounds and identities. Lastly, I keep a foot in research; my most recent publication investigates neural coding of temporally-dynamic sounds including human speech, and I am currently pursuing data analysis and modeling projects with collaborators.
Work-life balance is important to me. You’ll often find me outside — hiking, biking, gardening, or in a park with my dog. Ask me about podcasts, the WNBA, and balancing time as a student-athlete.