I am originally from Kerala, India, and I did my integrated BS-MS dual degree from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research. I am generally interested in understanding how brains work, specifically how they regulate innate behaviors without an external guide. As a part of my master’s thesis, I spent a year in the Otopalik Lab at the Janelia Research Campus of HHMI, where I used fruit fly courtship as a paradigm to understand visually guided pursuit. Working in this system led me to wonder what would happen if an external agent actually took control of the brain. This led me to the Elya lab, which studies a behavior-manipulating fungus that takes control of the fly brain and makes them perform bizarre behaviors. In the Elya lab, I will be learning how the expert neuroscientist E. muscae manipulates neural circuits of the fruit fly host.