I’m a neuroscientist interested in exploring fundamental mechanisms of long-term memory formation. I recently defended my PhD under the supervision of Dr. Zhong-Ping Feng in the Department of Physiology at the University of Toronto.

In my research, I used a valuable invertebrate neuroscience model, Lymnaea stagnalis, to study molecular, cellular, and electrophysiological changes following formation of aversive memory.

My broader research goals are to apply a molecular physiology approach coupled with data science-driven techniques to study the neuronal basis for behaviour, specifically as it relates to experience-dependent modification in molecular properties of single neurons leading to alterations in behaviour. My goal is to identify molecular pathways that are critical to learning using techniques from multiple biological levels, from the level of large scale ensembles of neurons or neural circuits using electrophysiology, to the level of transcript and protein regulation within individual cells of interest using targeted and bulk ‘omics.

As I move towards the next stage of my career, I plan to take the creative approaches to neuroscience research that I have learned by working with a challenging invertebrate model and combine them with the highly sophisticated molecular tools (engram tagging, ensemble neural coding via GCaMPs, targeted single-cell sequencing, spatial trancriptomics) to explore the frontier of the neuroscience of learning and memory.