I am a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows collaborating with Prof. Naoshige Uchida’s lab in the Dept. of Molecular and Cell Biology. My research is focused on the neural mechanisms of learning and their dysfunction in psychiatric disease.
Before coming to Harvard, I completed a Ph.D. in Neurosciences at Stanford University advised by Prof. Robert Malenka in collaboration with Prof. Neir Eshel. My doctoral research pioneered new strategies for the study of neuromodulatory systems and leveraged them to uncover a long-hypothesized opponent relationship between dopamine and serotonin in the control of reward learning. Prior to that, I received a B.A. in Molecular & Cell Biology and Psychology from UC Berkeley where my research with Prof. Stephan Lammel revealed organizational principles of the brain’s dopamine and serotonin systems. Along the way, I have co-authored numerous additional studies examining the roles of dopamine, serotonin, and neuropeptides in decision making, social behavior, autism spectrum disorder, and addiction.
My work has been recognized with the I.L. Chaikoff Award for excellence in neurobiology from UC Berkeley, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Gilliam Fellowship, a best poster award from the Dopamine Society, and the Weintraub Award for exceptional achievement in graduate studies. My writing has been featured in Journal of Neuroscience and Nature Neuroscience, and my research has been published in Science Translational Medicine, Neuron, Nature Communications, and Nature.