Course Faculty and Lecturers
Course Directors

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
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