Current and Past Projects

Timing and value signals in ACC

My dissertation project under Dr. Marshall Hussain Shuler investigates what algorithms animals use to invest time. Using behaviors and neuropixel recordings, I am hoping to establish a novel timing task where animals need to decide when to leave or commit to source of reward and investigate ACC activities using TD-based algorithms during these behaviors.

I will be blogging about this project as it progresses. Please follow there: /research/time_acc.

HPC-PFC interactions during Spatial Navigation

My undergrad thesis in Dr. Shantanu Jadhav's lab examines communications between the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Specifically, I wrote code to investigate neuronal population interactions between the two regions during distinct neural oscillation states, known to demarcate different behavior states.

You can read more here: /research/commsub.

Prior to this analysis project, my work in the Jadhav Lab focused on behavioral trainings. As a freshman, I initiated a project with my graduate student mentor Ryan Young that examines the neural basis of goal-directed behavior in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, which are involved in decision making. Specifically, we looked into how ensembles of neurons encode information for an animal's upcoming target. I also independently built micro-drives and ran in vivo electrophysiological experiments to record neuronal activity from rats as they navigated a maze for reward.

You can check out the behehavioral poster here: SciFest Behavior poster.

Intergenerational Transmission of Parenting Styles

I studied abroad in Korea University during freshman summer, where I was fortunate to meet Dr. Eric Youngstrom in my first graduate level course, advanced developmental neuropsychopathology. Dr. Youngstrom has been spreading multi-questionnaire surveys to classes he teaches at UNC Chapel Hill and Korea University every year, which accumulated into a multi-cultural dataset that greatly interested me. He kindly offered me to analyze the dataset with the help of Yen-Ling Chen at UNLV. Through their immense help, I examined intergenerational transmission of parenting styles by cross-correlating data from two questionnaires.

You can read more here: /research/parenting.