Course Directors

Alberto Pereda

Alberto E. Pereda
Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Alberto Pereda is a Professor in the Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience at of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. His laboratory is interested in the properties and dynamics of gap junction-mediated electrical transmission in the vertebrate brain. The approach involves investigating electrical transmission at identifiable auditory mixed (electrical and chemical) synapses on the fish Mauthner cells, as well mammalian brain structures. While the study of plasticity of chemical synapses has long been an area of primary interest to neuroscientists, less is known about the modifiability of electrical synapses. Alberto’s laboratory investigates mechanisms underlying changes in synaptic strength at electrical synapses, which ultimately requires determining their full molecular and structural complexity. Alberto has served as faculty in the Neurobiology course from 1996-2000 and 2004-2007, and directed the Grass Laboratory in 2012-2014. He began co-directing NS&B in 2020.

Stephanie White

Stephanie White
UCLA

Stephanie White is Professor of Integrative Biology & Physiology at UCLA where she also chairs the Undergraduate Neuroscience Interdepartmental Program. Her lab studies the neural basis of socially-learned vocal communication using songbirds. She conducted her doctoral training with Russ Fernald at Stanford University, investigating the social regulation of reproduction in cichlid fish. She was a postdoc at Duke with Rich Mooney, studying the neural basis of birdsong. Steph has previously been a student in NS&B and co-directed the Grass Labs in 2009-11. She began co-directing NS&B in 2019.

Course Faculty

Alberto Pereda, Albert Einstein College of Medicine 
Stephanie White, UCLA 
Felix Schweizer, UCLA 
Michael Wright, California State University Sacramento 
Krista Todd, Westminster College 
Marta Iversen, Westminster College 
Serapio Baca, University of Colorado, Denver 
David Weisblat, UC Berkeley 
Jim Angstadt, Siena College 
Lydia Szczupak, Universidad de Buenos Aires 
Brian Norris, California State University San Marcos 
Eric Fortune, New Jersey Institute of Technology 
Rudiger Krahe, Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin
Laura Quintana, Clemente Estable Biological Research Institute 
Vicky Salazar, Cape Breton University 
Ulises Ricoy, University of Arizona, Tucson 
Dawn Blitz, University of Miami 
Mark Beenhakker, University of Virginia 
John Huguenard, Stanford University 
Gaby Maimon, Rockefeller University 

Michael Reiser, Janelia Farms 
Michael Dickinson, Caltech 
Matt Van der Meer, Dartmouth University 
Jess Cardin, Yale University 
Rosamund Langston, University of Dundee 
Micahael Brecht, Humboldt University 
Ann Clemens, University of Edinburgh 
Mimi Kao, Tufts University 
Nancy Day, Whitman College 
Mark Alkema, University of Massachusetts Medical School 
Vivek Venkatachalam, Northeastern University
Mario Penzo, NIMH 
Zoe Donaldson, University of Colorado 
Jose Luis Pena, Einstein College of Medicine 
Eve Marder, Brandeis University 
Diego Bohorquez, Duke University 
Luke Remage-Healey, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 
Jennifer Raymond, Stanford University 
Ashlee Rowe, University of Oklahoma  

Course Staff

Course Assistants

  • Ilana Jacobs, Boston University
  • Brian Kearney, UCLA

Teaching Assistants 

Cycle I - Leech 

  • Christopher Winchell, UC Berkeley

Cycle II - Electric Fish

  • Katie Gallman, New Jersey Institute of Technology
  • Mariana Marquez, McGill University

            - Stomato-thalamo-gastric ganglion

  • Anna Schneider, New Jersey Institute of Technology
  • Adriane Otopalik, Rockefeller University
  • Savanna-Rae Fahoum, Miami University
  • Sonal Kedia, Brandeis University

Teaching Assistants

Cycle III - Fly

  • Sanna Koskela, Janelia Farms
  • Jazz Weissman, Rockefeller University
  • Sofia Avritzer, Rockefeller University

            - Mouse

  • Jeff Stott, Dartmouth College
  • Brandie Morris Verdone, Johns Hopkins University
  • Katie Ferguson, Yale University

Cycle IV - Birdsong

  • Elizabeth Cooke, UCLA
  • Hamish Mehaffey, UCSF

            - Worm

  • Mahdi Torkashvand, Northeastern University
  • Maedeh Seyedolmohadesin, Northeastern University
  • Gabriella Blanco, U Mass Medical School
  • Shankar Ramachandran, U Mass Medical School