Undergrads

Wu Tsai Undergraduate Fellows pursue mentored summer research under the mentorship of Yale faculty, postdocs, and graduate students from many fields, including computer science, biophysics, molecular and cellular biology, neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, and data science.

Undergraduate Fellowships

Research student giving a poster presentation at an event

Wu Tsai Institute Undergraduate Summer Scholar giving a poster presentation at Yale Science Building

Two people standing in a crowded event, discussing a poster in front of them

Wu Tsai Undergraduate Fellows

Vanessa Anaya
Advisor: Jutta Joormann

Emotion regulation strategy use, dynamic, and flexibility in depression and anxiety: an ecological momentary assessment

Rory Ashmeade
Advisor: Hal Blumenfeld

Investigating the role of the anterior insula in auditory processing during spike wave discharge

David Backer Peral
Advisor: Shreya Saxena

Modeling cooperative dynamics in rats through multiagent reinforcement learning

Wyatt Fishman
Advisor: Robb Rutledge

The effects of both low-level and high-level visual features on affective dynamics during movie watching

Alfredo Frontera
Advisor: Jessica Cardin

Machine Learning Methods For Autism Mice Model

Evelyn Jiang
Advisor: John Demb

Molecular mechanisms of synaptic vesicle recycling in retinal interneurons

Darren Kao
Advisor: Tom McCoy

A study of whether neural networks capture the use-mention distinction

Miray Laktineh
Advisor: Elizabeth Goldfarb

Dynamic neural and affective responses to stress and memory integration

Rohan Lokanadham
Advisor: Alfred Kaye

Evaluating physiological changes in animal fear of heights with stress manipulation

Sabrina Mo
Advisor: Heather Snell

Imaging CACNA1A mutations in calcium channels: linking subunit variations to motor and cognitive deficits in EA2 and FHM1

Brandon Quach
Advisor: Trevor Sorrells

Predicting cell type-specific enhancer accessibility using deep learning in mosquito neuronal cells

Laura Reyes Umaña
Advisor: Julia Leonard

The effect of environmental stakes on children’s optimistic expectations

Sarah Cook
Advisor: Michael Higley

Investigating the synaptic architecture of contralateral projections in barrel cortex

Austin Curtis
Advisor: Hongying Shen

Investigating the role of human SLC25A39 through structure-function analysis of yeast Mtm1

Micah Gold
Advisor: Abhishek Bhattacharjee

Applying temporal neural networks in online spike sorting algorithms for brain-computer interfaces

Odessa Goldberg
Advisor: Wendy Berry Mendes

Examining tVNS as a stress-reduction intervention

Youssef Ibrahim
Advisor: Stephen Strittmatter

Exploring the role of Lrp8 and ApoE interaction in axonal regeneration after spinal cord injury

Alexandra Martinez-Garcia
Advisor: Dylan Gee

Collection and quality assurance analysis of MRI data alongside literature review concerning the endocannabinoid system’s role in the brain’s development

Jessica Na
Advisor: Marina Picciotto

Investigating the role of the PDE4-PKA pathway in stress-induced ethanol drinking

Noor Nouaili
Advisor: Jane Taylor

Uncovering resilience to early life stress in a rat model of pro-sociality

Witt Phillips
Advisor: Ilker Yildirim

Decoding symbolic mechanisms of neural computation via programmable recurrent neural networks

Hunter Robbins
Advisor: Arielle Baskin-Sommers

Impaired ambiguity aversion during cost-benefit decisions in antisocial citizens

Nathan Shan
Advisor: Damon Clark

Investigating the role of mitochondria in synaptic function of C. elegans

Olivia White Storti
Advisor: Jessica Cardin

Convergent phenotype of vision loss for different mouse models of autism spectrum disorder

Tran Doan
Advisor: Brian Scassellati

Human-robot hide-and-seek

Sarah Feng
Advisor: Elizabeth Goldfarb

Trauma resilience and multiple memory systems

Ernestine Giahyue
Advisor: Marina Picciotto

Labeling the ensemble of neurons activated during stress and reward encoding using ArcTRAP

Eliana Peyton
Advisor: Elizabeth Jonas

Molecular determinants of behavior patterns in an autism/BPD model rodent

Sean Piñón
Advisor: Jaime Grutzendler

Investigating glial-vascular transport mechanisms across the blood-brain barrier

Aranyo Ray
Advisor: Melissa Ferguson

Social learning of international students in the United States

Ariana Reichler
Advisor: Dylan Gee

Affective schema learning and early experiences

Nathalia Reis
Advisor: Jutta Joormann

Functional brain networks underlying cognitive inflexibility

Ben Scheve
Advisor: Arielle Baskin-Sommers

Environmental risk and protective factors for youth suicidality

Isabel Shi
Advisor: Hal Blumenfeld

Study of impaired consciousness in a mouse model of focal temporal lobe seizures

Serina Wang
Advisor: Ilker Yildirim

Reverse-engineering the brain: modeling neural dynamics of primate predator pursuit with novel recurrent neural network model

Elizabeth Wu
Advisor: Damon Clark

Dissecting visual distance estimation in Drosophila

Callie Benson-Williams
Advisor: Arielle Baskin-Sommers

The role of multicontextual threat on emotional and cognitive processing

Doris Chen
Advisor: Albert Powers

Resting state of executive control networks (DLPFC) predict development of control of hallucinations

Evan Gerritz
Advisor: Steven Zucker

The role of color in the perception of translucent surfaces

Dawood Ghauri
Advisor: Liang Liang

Neuron identification using convolutional neural networks for in-vivo two-photon calcium imagery from mice

Brianny Gonzalez
Advisor: Arielle Baskin-Sommers

The effects of disruptive behavior disorders and family environment and neighborhood environment on behavioral and neural indicators of emotional working memory

Gabriela Hernandez-Busot
Advisor: Albert Powers

Measuring brain-derived neurotrophic factor in serum as a biomarker of cognition in patients with hallucinations and clinical high risk for psychosis

Elisa Howard
Advisor: Stephen Strittmatter

Imaging dynamics of the actin-spectrin cytoskeleton of regenerating axons

Erick Lopez
Advisor: Hal Blumenfeld

Role of subcortical arousal systems during transient changes in attention

Amma Otchere
Advisor: Michael Crair

Investigating the role of acetylcholine in the developing mouse cortex

Arianna Rodriguez-Rivera
Advisor: Elizabeth Goldfarb

Multiple cognitive and neurobiological mechanisms of alcohol processing

Sabrina Santos-De Leon
Advisor: Samuel McDougle

Hierarchical control and memory encoding