Fellowships and Awards

NB&B graduate students are members of the Zuckerman Institute and submit fellowship applications through ZI's Pre-Award and Research Development office. Visit their website for more information on available opportunities and how to start the application process. 

NSF Fellowship

Bianca Corjuc (Advisor: Kapil Ramachandran)

Keira Ramirez (Advisor: Chris Makinson)

NIH NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship

Nick Bulthius. "The impact of Alzheimer’s disease on novel genetic signatures of hippocampal memory traces" (Advisor: Christine Denny)

Isabel Bravo, "Impact of social environment on cognitive development and thalamocortical maturation" (Advisor: Christoph Kellendonk)

Natalie Edwards. "Synergistic contributions of cerebrovascular disease and neuroinflammation to Alzheimer’s disease in adults with Down syndrome" (Advisor: Adam Brickman)

David Gruskin, "Multiscale imaging of context-dependent decision-making" (Advisors: Itamar Kahn & Mike Shadlen)

Jin Michelle, "Investigating the Impacts of Pharmacological Slow Wave Sleep Enhancement on Cognition and Memory Traces in an Alzheimers Disease Model" (Advisor: Christine Denny)

Briana McRae, "Brain-wide neural mechanisms enhancing maternal behavioral response to infant cues" (Advisors: Bianca Jones Marlin& Itamar Kahn)

Brianna Pereira, "Targeting Purinergic Signaling to Block the Effects of Seizures on Glioma Progression" (Advisor: Peter Canoll)

Aleksandra Recupero, "Impact of Species-Specific Synaptic Maturation Timing on Cortical Circuit and Behavioral Development" (Advisor: Franck Polleux)

Abby Wood, "The cellular and neural circuit basis of flexible escape behavior" (Advisor: Wes Grueber)

NIH F99/K00 Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition

Kevin Gonzalez "Subcellular plasticity mechanisms of hippocampal-dependent memory formation and consolidation" (Advisors: Attila Losonczy & Frack Polluex)

Ellie Brewer "Synaptic TDP43 in the adult mouse brain" (Advisors: Ai Yamamoto)

Foundation Fellowships

Margaret Conde-Paredes, Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds (BIF) Fellowship (Advisor: Attila Losonczy)

NSF Fellowship

George Thomas Barlow (Advisor: Richard Axel)

Jessica Burke (Advisor: Vikram Gadagkar)

Chase King (Advisor: Rotating)

Abhishek Shah (Advisor: Attila Losonczy / Stefano Fusi)

NIH NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship

Mary Claire Tuohy "Type I interferon mediated restoration of brain endothelial cell function after cerebral infarction" (Advisor: Dritan Agalliu)

Justin Buck "Testing competing models of the computational role of dopamine in hallucinations" (Advisor: Guillermo Horga)

NIH F99/K00 Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition

Darik O'Neil "The Neglected Subiculum: Decoding and Manipulating Memory Retrieval with Multiphoton Holography" (Advisor: Rafa Yuste)

Foundation Fellowships

Francisco Sacadura, Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds (BIF) Fellowship, (Advisor: Mark Churchland)

Brianna Pereira, American Epilepsy Society Fellowship (Advisor: Peter Canoll)

NSF Fellowship

Ines Aitsahalia (Advisor: Rotating)

Rachel Estrella (Advisor: Rotating)

Risako Kimura (Advisors: Hemali Phatnani/Ai Yamamoto)

Olena Kuksenko (Advisor: Hemali Phatnani)

Christine Liu (Advisor: Rotating)

NIH NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship

Camila Demaestri "Mechanisms of sex selective enhancement of threat anticipation following early life adversity" (Advisor: Kevin Bath)

Elizabeth Pekarskaya-Lumels "The role of bahenular hyperactivity in the action of tianeptine, a novel treatment for neuorpathic pain" (Advisor: Jonathan Javitch)

Ariel Pourmorady "Deciphering mechanisms for olfactory receptor choice in single cells" (Advisor: Stavros Lomvardas)

Gabriel Stine "Parieto-collicular interactions during perceptual decisions" (Advisor: Mike Shadlen)

NIH F99/K00 Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition

Michelle Stackmann "Generation of a dual transgenic/viral system to characterize multiple engrams in a single mouse" (Advisor: Christine Denny)

Foundation Fellowships

Valentine Andreu, Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds (BIF) Fellowship (Advisor: Bianca Jones Marlin)

Sharon Su, National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship (Advisors: Rudy Behnia/Larry Abbott)

NSF Fellowship

Elom Amematsro (Advisors: Mark Churchland/Larry Abbott)

Nicholas Bulthuis (Advisor: Christine Denny)

Rachel Frazer (Advisor: Ishmail Abdus-Saboor)

Jasmine Stone (Advisor: Rotating)

NIH NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship

Shivani Bigler "Odor-Reward Association Encoding in CA2 and its Contribution to Social Memory" (Advisor: Steve Siegelbaum)

Zena Chatila "Alzheimer's Disease Genetic Risk and Microglial Innate Immune Memory" (Advisor: Elizabeth Bradshaw)

Mike Cohanpour "Linking sensory uncertainty with motivation and memory" (Advisors: Gottlieb, Jackie & Aly, Mariam)

Lilian Coie "Adhesion GPCR Cirl as a novel regulator of dopamine neurotransmission" (Advisor: Jonathan Javitch)

Alexander Goldberg "Targeting Neuron-Microglia Interactions at the Margin of Glioma" (Advisors: Peter Canoll/Elizabeth Hillman)

Christopher Griffey "The role of Parkin in mitophagy and dopaminergic neuron homeostasis" (Advisor: Ai Yamamoto)

Avery McGuirt "Accumbal Activity Contouring Underlying Cue-Directed Reward Seeking" (Advisor: Dave Sulzer)

Tracey Reznik "Resting state connectivity signatures of obsessive compulsive symptoms" (Advisors: Blair Simpson/Rachel Marsh)

Michelle Stackmann "Dissecting the role of Arc- and c-fos-expressing neuronal ensembles in fear memories" (Advisor: Christine Denny)

Bert Vancura "Inhibitory Network Dynamics Supporting Hippocampal Spatial Representations" (Advisor: Attila Losonczy)

NIH F99/K00 Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition

Josephine McGowan "Dissecting the Contribution of the Ventral Hippocampus to (R,S)-Ketamine's Fear Buffering Effects" (Advisor: Christine Denny) 

Jung Park "Plasticity of cortical circuits in health, aging, and Alzheimer's disease" (Steve Siegelbaum)

Foundation Fellowships

Ishani Ganguly, Department of Energy (DOE) Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (Advisor: Rudy Behnia)

Denis Turcu, Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds (BIF) Fellowship (Advisors: Ken Miller/Larry Abbott)

NIH NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship

Lara Boyle "A potential novel role for hippocampal subregion ventral CA2 in sociability" (Advisor: Steve Siegelbaum)

Briana Chen "The PACAP signaling pathway as a novel regulator of the neural circuits underlying fear generalization" (Advisor: Christine Denny)

Zhenrui Liao "Dissecting microcircuit alterations in the epileptic dentate gyrus with functional imaging" (Advisor: Attila Losonczy)

Sean Lim "Investigating Ventral CA1 Neural Representations of Anxiety-Like Behavior" (Advisor: Rene Hen)

Josephine McGowan "Elucidating the mechanisms underlying ketamine-induced protection against fear overgeneralization" (Advisor: Christine Denny)

Francisco Pena "The Role of the Basolateral Amygdala in Cue-induced Eating" (Advisor: Daniel Salzman)

Joshua Taliaferro "Layer-specific encoding of working memory in an automated 8-arm radial maze" (Advisor: Christoph Kellendonk)

NIH F99/K00 Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition

Kelly Martyniuk "Co-regulation of striatal dopamine and acetylcholine in associative reward learning" (Advisor: Christoph Kellendonk)

NSF Fellowship 

Patricia Cooney (Advisor: Wes Grueber) 

Ching Fang (Advisor: Rotating)

Konner Kirwan (Advisor: Rotating)

Erica Shook (Advisor: Rotating)

NIH NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship

Laura Benoit "The effect of adolescent thalamic inhibition on adult prefrontal cortical function" (Advisor: Christoph Kellendonk)

Sarah Heath "Spectral and spatial processing of wavelength information in the Drosophila visual system" (Advisor: Rudy Behnia)

James Priestley "Memory compression in the hippocampus" (Advisor: Attila Losonczy)

Lisa Randolph "Post-transcriptional regulation of Snap25 by Pumilio proteins in synaptogenesis" (Advisor: Ulrich Hengst)

Leslie Sibener "Dissecting the role of thalamostriatal circuits in flexible versus automatized motor skill execution" (Advisor: Rui Costa)

Alexander Whitebirch "The role of CA2 circuits in temporal lobe epilepsy" (Advisor: Steve Siegelbaum)

Foundation Fellowships

Kimberly Hernandez, NASEM Ford Foundation Fellowship (Advisors: Steve Sigelbaum/Andres Bendesky)

Jack Lindsey, Department of Energy (DOE) Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (Advisor: Rotating)

Alonso Ortega, Fulbright Fellowship (Advisor: Rotating)

NSF Fellowship
Marissa Applegate (Advisor: Dmitriy Aronov)
Jung Park (Advisor: Randy Bruno)

NIH NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship

Jack Berry "Investigating the role of hilar mossy cells in anxiety-like behavior" (Advisor: René Hen)


John Bowler "Characterizing Direct Cortical Influences on Hippocampal CA1 Population Dynamics in Behaving Mice" (Advisor: Attila Losonczy)


Catherine Braine "Transforming Growth Factor Beta Signaling in a mouse model of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis" (Advisor: Tom Maniatis).   

Scott Kanner "Sculpting the ubiquitin status of KCNQ1 in cardiac health and disease" (Advisor: Henry Colecraft)

Alexandra Kaufman "Neuromodulatory and astrocyte influences on hippocampal place cell plasticity" (Advisor: Attila Losonczy)

Jessica Kohn "The effect of locomotion-induced octopamine release on motion detection circuits in Drosophila" (Advisor: Rudy Behnia)

Najja Marshall "Optimal force production via flexible neural control of motor units" (Advisor: Mark Churchland) 

Sebastian Rolotti "Impact of network oscillations on dendritic computation in hippocampal pyramidal neurons" (Advisor: Attila Losonczy)

Foundation Fellowships 

Jessica Kohn, HHMI Gilliam Fellowship for Advanced Study (Advisor: Rudy Behnia)

NSF Fellowship
Josephine McGowan (Advisor: Rotating)
Ashlea Morgan (Advisor: Mark Ansorge)
Grace Paquelet (Advisor: Rotating)
Nicholas Singletary (Advisor: Rotating)
Andrew Zimnik (Advisor: Mark Churchland)

NSF Fellowship - Honorable Mention
Jessica Kohn (Advisor: Rudy Behnia)
James Priestley (Advisor: Rotating)
Leslie Sibener (Advisor: Rotating)
Alexandra Whitebirch (Advisor: Steven Siegelbaum)

NIH NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship
Rachel Clary "Cellular and molecular mechanisms of neuronal remodeling in healthy tissue" (Advisor: Ellen Lumpkin)
Daniel Kato "Effects of learning on multi-sensory integration in primary sensory cortical areas" (Advisor: Randy Bruno)
Benjamin Hoffman "Peripheral mechanisms of neurotransmission in mammalian touch receptors" (Advisor: Ellen Lumpkin)
Adan Horta "Developmentally dynamic chromatin architecture during neurogenesis" (Advisor: Stavros Lomvardos)
Daniel Iascone "Whole-neuron structural input mapping of SRGAP2 regulation of synaptic development" (Advisor: Franck Polleux)
Ori Lieberman "Regulation of striatal maturation by dopamine and macroautophagy: implications for neuropsychiatric disorders" (Advisor: Dave Sulzer)

Eduardo Perez-Torres "Retromer dysfunction in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis" (Advisor: Serge Przedborski)
Richard Warren "Circuit Mechanisms for the Cancellation of Self-Generated Sounds in the Dorsal Cochlear Nucleus" (Advisor: Nate Sawtell) Mary Youssef "Role of dentate granule cell birth date in determining stress-related function" (Advisors: Alex Dranovsky/Dave Leonardo)

NSF Fellowship
Sean Bittner (Advisor: Rotating)
Sarah Heath (Advisor: Rudy Behnia)
Francisco Pena (Advisor: Daniel Salzman)
Rebecca Rabinovich (Advisor: Randy Bruno)
Rebecca Vaadia (Advisor: Wesley Grueber)
Abigail Zadina (Advisor: Nate Sawtell)

NSF Fellowship - Honorable Mention
Veronica Birdsall (Advisor: Clarissa Waites)
Rachel Clary (Advisor: Ellen Lumpkin)
Jessica Kohn (Advisor: Rudy Behnia)
Melissa Lee (Advisor: Mimi Shirazu-Hiza, Carol Mason)
Josephine McGowan (Advisor: Rotating)
Ashlea Morgan (Advisor: Mark Ansorge)
James Priestley (Advisor: Rotating)
Anna Snyder (Advisor: Nate Sawtell)
Richard Warren (Advisor: Nathaniel Sawtell)

NIH NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship
Joshua Chalif "Excitatory Spinal micro-circuit mechanisms involved in locomotor activity" (Advisor: George Mentis)
Samuel Clark "Optical imaging of dopamine kinetics in prefrontal cortex of normal and schizophrenia model mice" (Advisor: David Sulzer)
Georgia Pierce "The role of secondary thalamus in enhancing cortical sensory representations" (Advisor: Randy Bruno)
Claire Warriner "Motor cortical control of voluntary forelimb muscle activity" (Advisor: Tom Jessell)

NSF Fellowship
Eleanor Batty (Advisor: Liam Paninski)
Catherine Braine (Advisor: Tom Maniatis)
Macayla Donegan (Advisor: Steve Siegelbaum)
Alexandra Kaufman (Attila Losonczy)
Laura Long (Advisor: Nima Mesgarani)
Najja Marshall (Advisors: Larry Abbott, Mark Churchland)
Sebastian Rolotti (Advisor: Attila Losonczy)

NSF Fellowship - Honorable Mention
Melissa Lee (Advisor: Mimi Shirasu-Hiza)
Rebecca Rabinovich (Advisor: Randy Bruno)
Melina Tsitsiklis (Advisor: Daphna Shohamy)
Richard Warren (Nathaniel Sawtell)

NIH NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship

Yossef Goffer "The Rewarding Value of Sugar in the Absence of Sweet Taste" (Advisor: Rudy Leibel)
Phuong Hoang "Investigating V1 interneuron subtype diversity using embryonic stem cells" (Advisor: Hynek Wichterle)
Blair Jenkins "How do discriminative touch receptors selectively innervate peripheral targets?" (Advisor: Ellen Lumpkin)
Katherine Shakman "Defining the Circuitry for Olfactory Memories Beyond the Mushroom Body in Drosophila melanogaster" (Advisor: Richard Axel)
Joseph Stujenske "The role of basolateral amygdala interneurons in fear suppression" (Advisor: Joshua Gordon/Steve Siegelbaum)
Jeffrey Zaremba "Understanding hippocampal circuit dysfunction in 22q11.2 model of schizophrenia" (Advisor: Attila Losonczy/Joseph Gogos)

NSF Fellowship
Laura DeSouza (Advisor: Sarah Woolley)
Neeli Mishra (Advisor: Richard Axel)

NSF Fellowship - Honorable Mention
Georgia Pierce (Advisor: Randy Bruno)

NIH NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship
Scott Bolkan "Optogenetic dissection of thalamoprefrontal circuitry supporting spatial working memory" (Advisor: Christoph Kellendonk)
Shobhit Singla "Adaptive sensory processing in the dorsal cochlear nucleus of the mouse" (Advisor: Nate Sawtell)
Abigail Clark "Dissection of mediodorsal thalamic circuitry underlying flexible behavior" (Advisor: Christoph Kellendonk)
Anita Burgos "Dissection of neural circuitry underlying nociception in Drosophila larvae" (Advisor: Wes Grueber)
Noam Rudnick "Role of p62 in a mouse model of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis" (Advisor: Tom Maniatis)
Rebecca Williamson "APP ubiquitination and implications for AB generation" (Advisor: Gilbert Di Paolo)
Nate Danielson "Functional dissection of a radial subdivision among hippocampal pyramidal cells" (Advisor: Attila Losonczy)

Croucher Fellowship for Doctoral Study
Nina So (Advisor: Sarah Woolley)

Dean's Award for Excellence in Research
Christine Constantinople

NSF Fellowship
Nancy Padilla (Advisor: Joshua Gordon)
Caterina Profaci (Advisor: Karen Duff)
Jeffrey Seely (Advisors: Mark Churchland, Larry Abbott)

NSF Fellowship - Honorable Mention
Grace Lindsay (Advisor: Ken Miller)

NIH NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship
Leora Fox "Alfy-mediated selective macroautophagy and the pathogenesis of Huntington's disease" (Advisor: Ai Yamamoto)
Rachel Kolster "smFRET investigation of gating in a neurotransmitter transporter homolog" (Advisor: Jonathan Javitch)
Mariel Kozberg "In-vivo imaging of the evolution of hemodynamic control in the developing brain" (Advisor: Elizabeth Hillman)
Justin Lee "Mechanisms underlying selective motor pool vulnerability in mouse and human SMA (Advisor: Chris Henderson)
Elizabeth Stone "Phagocytosis is misregulated in a Drosophila model of Fragile X Syndrome" (Advisor: Mimi Shirasu-Hiza)

NSF Fellowship
Zvi Fishman (Advisor: Charles Zuker)
Mariano Gabitto (Advisor: Charles Zuker)
Ali Raza (Advisor: Donald Hood)

NIH NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship
Frederick Hitti "Characterization and genetic ablation of the CA2 subfield of the hippocampus" (Advisor: Steve Siegelbaum)
Ellen Peck "Spatial and reward coding in the primate amygdala" (Advisor: C. Daniel Salzman)
Angel Maldonado "Identification and regulation of quiescent stem cells in the adult brain (Advisor: Fiona Doetsch)
Alejandro Ramirez "Processing of complex stimuli in the primary sensory cortex" (Advisor: Randy Bruno)

HHMI International Predoctoral Fellowship
Patrick Kaifosh "Hippocampal circuit mechanisms for memory" (Advisors: Attila Losonczy, Larry Abbott)

NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship
Sam Qian (Advisor: Wes Grueber)

Kavli Award for Distinguished Research in Neuroscience
Priya Rajasethupathy "Novel small RNA mediated gene-regulatory mechanisms for long-term memory" (Advisor: Eric Kandel)

NSF Fellowship
Anita Burgos (Advisor: Wes Grueber)
Timothy Machado (Advisor: Tom Jessell)
Krista Spiller (Advisor: Chris Henderson)

NSF Fellowship - Honorable Mention
Scott Bolkan (Advisors: Josh Gordon, Christoph Kellendonk)
Rebecca Brachman (Advisor: Rene Hen)
Martin Vignovich (Advisor: Charles Zuker)

NIH NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship
Derek Oakley "Modifiers of Age of Onset in ALS Studied Using Patient iPS-derived Motor Neurons" (Advisor: Chris Henderson)
Tim Requarth "Neural Mechanisms for Sensory Prediction in Cerebellum-like Structure" (Advisor: Nathaniel Sawtell)