About Me.
Professionally...
I am a PhD Candidate in Neural Computation at Carnegie Mellon University interested in using electrophysiology and information theory to explore the neural circuitry underlying how we represent our environment and ourselves within it. Currently, I'm advised by Dr. Doug Weber in the NeuroMechatronics Lab. During my undergraduate education, I was lucky enough to work under the supervision of Dr. Caleb Kemere in the Realtime Neural Engineering Lab (RNEL) at Rice University. To read more about my research, both past and present, head over to my research page or check out the videos below!Personally...
Believe it or not, I like to do other things outside of research. I practiced Taekwondo very seriously, to the point where I had several national and international titles by high school, but switched to teaching after a swivel chair shattered my Olympic dreams. Languages fascinate me, and I'm always looking to practice what I know or learn something new. I have an Irish Wolfhound puppy named Aldo, who I am currently training to be certified to visit patients in hospitals! A few more interests of note include barrel racing, creative writing (specifically poetry) and weight lifting.Labs Worked With
Podium Talks
Conference Posters
Classes TA'd
Media.
Research.
During my undergraduate career, I have found enjoyment in the intersection of the fields of engineering and neuroscience, the former of which I’d had little to no exposure to until coming to Rice. However, I have become deeply interested in how an engineering background enables me to further probe and interact with the brain, ultimately allowing for more innovative methods of decoding neural activity. In the Kemere Lab, I was working to understand the role of the hippocampus in both spatial navigation (see RELevator) and learning/memory (check out Sharp Wave). In my graduate and career, however, I am more interested in how we can leverage the signals we record from the brain to facilitate more direct interaction with our external environment.
- Undergrad: Rice University
- Magnetoelectric Films
- Sharp Wave Ripples
- Cornell NeuroNex
- Animal Tracking
- RELevator
Teaching.
When I got to Rice University, I realized I had nothing figured out. Classes were hard, I had no clue what my career path would look like — the impact my mentors and TAs had on me were incredibly powerful in those early years. I strive to help students navigating their early years of research or a new academic field, and come to love the field as I do.
My experience is as follows :
Course Development
Rice Center for Engineering Leadership's IOT with Machine Learning & Python
Teaching high school students how to utilize realtime sensor data, along with the immense data available online, to create predictive unsupervised machine learning algorithms and utilizing JSON/HTTP.
Academic Fellow
Computer Science, Neuroscience, Research & Writing
Academic Fellowships at Rice University aim to identify students who perform exceptionally in a certain course, major, or field that may be able to provide free, on-call academic aid to students who reside in their residential colleges.
Teaching Assistant
I have always enjoyed teaching, and sought out many opportunities as an undergraduate to work on those skills. At Rice University, I TA'd COMP 140 (Introduction to Computational Thinking), BIOC 385/585 (Fundamentals of Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience) and ELEC 220 (Fundamentals of Computer Engineering). At Carnegie Mellon, I TA'd the Neural Engineering Laboratory course.
Mentorship
As a newbie in academia, I needed help getting on my feet and figuring out how the academic system works. I pass that knowledge onto my mentees. Check them out here to see some awesome future scientists and neuroengineers!
Contact.
Office hours, research help, pie appointments — you name it. Shoot me a message: