Fellowships and Awards

The Kavli Postdoctoral Awards for Collaborative Excellence were established in 2021 to support exceptional scholars who bring a diversity of perspectives and experiences to academic research (2-year awards). The Kavli Institute for Neuroscience at the Yale School of Medicine is committed to fostering and supporting an inclusive neuroscience research community. Diversity is vital to achieving excellence and innovation in scientific research.

Elucidating Mechanisms of Axonal Maintenance through Tubulin Turnover

Postdoctoral Fellow: Antoneta Gavoci

Mentor: Shaul Yogev (Neuroscience, Cell Biology)

Determining Circuit Mechanisms of Neuromodulation in Visual Threat Behavior

Postdoctoral Fellow: Stephanie Staszko

Mentor: Alfred Kaye (Psychiatry)

Mapping the pleiotropic implications of functional risk loci for neuropsychiatric disorders in the Latin American population

Postdoctoral Fellow: José Jaime Martínez-Magaña

Mentor: Janitza Montalvo-Ortiz (Psychiatry)

Neurogenetics Basis of Tourette Syndrome: A Comprehensive Analysis of Genomic and Proteomic factors

Postdoctoral Fellow: Enock Teefe

Mentors: Thomas Fernandez (Child Study Center), co-mentor Christopher Pittenger (Psychiatry)

Functional Link Between Vascular Leptomeningeal Cells and Aß Accumulation in Alzheimer’s Disease

Postdoctoral Fellow: LaShae Nicholson

Mentor: Stephen Strittmatter (Neurology and Neuroscience)

Role of Anterior Cingulate Cortex Inhibitory and Excitatory Neurons on Associative Opioid Tolerance

Postdoctoral Fellow: Rafael Perez

Mentor: Marina Picciotto (Psychiatry)

Sex-specific or Shared Neurobiological Features of Transdiagnostic Psychiatric Illnesses Risk in Childhood and Adolescence

Postdoctoral Fellow: Elvisha Dhamala

Mentor: Avram Holmes (Psychology)

The Kavli Institute for Neuroscience Postdoctoral Fellowships were established to enable postdoctoral fellows the opportunity to pursue new and innovative research at the boundaries between neuroscience and other disciplines, such as engineering, physics, chemistry and bioinformatics (1-year fellowships).

Identifying the genetic modifiers of ALS-linked TDP-43 mislocalization and dysfunction

Postdoctoral fellow: Zhen Lei

Mentors: Junjie Guo (Neuroscience), David Breslow (Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology)

Disentangling dual mechanisms for neuroimmune sensing

Postdoctoral fellow: Madeleine Junkins

Mentors: Ruslan Medzhitov (Immunobiology), Rui Chang (Neuroscience, Cellular and Molecular Physiology

2024

Elucidating the role of VPS13D in physiology and neurological disease

Postdoctoral Fellow: Hongyan Hao
Mentors: Pietro De Camilli (Neuroscience, Cell Biology), Marc Hammarlund (Neuroscience, Genetics)

Understanding information processing and neural computation during goal-oriented navigation

Postdoctoral Fellow: Kevin Chen
Mentors: Thierry Emonet (Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Physics), Damon Clark (Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Physics, Neuroscience)

Data-driven approaches for deciphering the organizational and neuroenergetic principles underpinning information processing in the C. elegans neural circuitry

Postdoctoral Fellow: Dhananjay Bhaskar
Mentors: Smita Krishnaswamy (Genetics, Computer Science), Daniel Colón-Ramos (Neuroscience, Cell Biology

2023

Molecular Mechanisms of Neural and Cognitive Plasticity in Motherhood

Postdoctoral Fellow: Winnie Orchard
Mentors: Linda Mayes (Child Study Center, Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics, Psychology) Kieran O’Donnell (Child Study Center, Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences)

The Impact of Spatial Context on Inter-laminar Interactions in Visual Cortex

Postdoctoral Fellow: Xize Xu
Mentors: Monika Jadi (Psychiatry, Neuroscience) Anirvan Nandy (Neuroscience)

2022

Investigating PTSD Driver Genes in a Zebrafish Model

Postdoctoral Fellow: Priyanka Jamadagni
Mentors: Ellen Hoffman (Child Study Center, Neuroscience) Matthew Girgenti (Psychiatry)

Maintenance of blood-brain barrier integrity in hibernators

Postdoctoral Fellow: Maryann Platt
Mentors: Elena Gracheva (Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Neuroscience), and Anne Eichmann (Cardiology, Cellular and Molecular Physiology)

Neurocognitive Mechanisms of Caregiving Across the Perinatal Period

Postdoctoral Fellow: Tal Yatziv
Mentors: Helena Rutherford (Child Study Center), and Phillip Corlett (Psychiatry)

2021

How does the “little brain” of the heart develop?

Postdoctoral Fellow: I-Uen (Yvonne) Hsu, PhD
Mentors: Rui Chang (Neuroscience, Cellular and Molecular Physiology), Lawrence Young (Cardiology, Cellular and Molecular Physiology), and Le Zhang (Neurology)

2020

Recording and Stimulating Memory Circuits in the Human Brain

Postdoctoral Fellow: David Huberdeau, PhD
Mentors:Nick Turk-Browne (Psychology) and Eyiyemisi Damisah (Neurosurgery)

2019

Using hibernation to understand the mechanism of touch detection by sensory neurons

Postdoctoral Fellow: Wang Zheng, PhD
Mentors: Sviatoslav Bagriantsev and Elena O. Gracheva

2018

Mapping the cortical substrate for value-based decisions in mice

Postdoctoral Fellow: Huriye Atilgan, PhD
Mentors: Alex Kwan and Ifat Levy

Phase transitions of neurodegenerative proteins analyzed by solid-state NMR

Postdoctoral Fellow: Marcus Tuttle, PhD
Mentors: Steve Strittmatter and Kurt Zilm

Molecular and functional dissection of the heart-to-brain circuits

Postdoctoral Fellow: Qiancheng Zhao, PhD
Mentors: Rui Chang and Lawrence Young

Launched in 2004 (Kavli Innovative Research Award) and redesigned in 2023, the Kavli Innovative Teams Awards support the creation of innovative teams that tackle established questions with the goal of seeding future large-scale program grant applications (1-year awards). Many major questions in neuroscience can be solved only by assembling teams of skilled researchers using multiple established techniques to achieve progress where no one laboratory can succeed alone

Visualizing ‘immune engrams’ using three-photon imaging through the skull

Investigators: Cristina Rodriguez (Biomedical Engineering) & Emilia Favuzzi (Neuroscience)

Using functional studies and information theory to comprehend the neuroscience of touch

Investigators: Sviatoslav Bagriantsev (Cellular and Molecular Physiology) & Benjamin Machta (Physics

2024 Award

Elucidating Molecular Connectomics using Pan-Staining Expansion Microscopy

Investigators: Aaron Kuan (Neuroscience, Biomedical Engineering), & Joerg Bewersdorf (Cell Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Physics

2023 Awards

Investigating Neurobiological Mechanisms of Disrupted Stress and Metabolic Responses in Alcohol Use Disorder
Investigators: Dongju Seo (Psychiatry, Yale Stress Center), & Renata Belfort De Aguiar (Medicine, Endocrinology)

Develop Tools to Evaluate Contribution of Local Translation to Synaptic Plasticity
Investigators: Shaul Yogev (Neuroscience, Cell Biology) & Susumu Tomita (Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Neuroscience)

2022 Award

“Identification of Genes Supporting Cortico-Cerebellar Connectivity for Language and Reading”
Investigators: Jeffrey Gruen (Pediatrics, Genetics) & Nenad Sestan (Neuroscience, Comparative Medicine, Genetics, Psychiatry)

2021 Awards

Elucidating the Role of Neural Activity in the Development of Thalamic Feature Selectivity
Investigators: Liang Liang (Neuroscience) and Michael Crair (Neuroscience, Ophthalmology & Visual Science)

Exploring the continuum of threat-imminence oscillations using human iEEG
Investigators: Alfred Kaye (Psychiatry) and Eyiyemisi Damisah (Neurosurgery)

Genetic strategies to investigate the roles of GABAergic interneurons of the primate prefrontal cortex in cognitive and motivational regulation
Investigators: Hyojung Seo (Psychiatry, Neuroscience), In-Jung Kim (Ophtalmology and Visual Science, Neuroscience), Nenad Sestan (Neuroscience, Comparative Medicine, Genetics, Psychiatry), and Amy Arnsten (Neuroscience, Psychology)

Organelle Transport Mechanisms That Support Axonal Health
Investigators: Marc Hammarlund (Neuroscience, Genetics) and Shawn Ferguson (Cell Biology, Neuroscience)

2020 Awards

Engineering organoid-based brain circuits
Investigators: Flora Vaccarino (Child Study Center, Neuroscience) and Andre Levchenko (Biomedical Engineering)

Investigating the learning-dependent reorganization of functional connectivity in cortical networks
Investigators: Michael Higley (Neuroscience) and Ronald Coifman (Mathematics, Computer Science)

Elucidating the dendritic spine actin structure and dynamics at nanoscale resolution
Investigators: Anthony Koleske (Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Neuroscience) and Joerg Bewersdorf (Cell Biology, Biomedical Engineering)

2019 Awards

Dynamics of membrane tension and synaptic vesicle recycling
Investigators: Erdem Karatekin, Benjamin Machta, and David Zenisek

A paradigm shift in the study of complex social cognition
Investigators: Anirvan Nandy, Monika Jadi, and Steve Chang

From connectome to transcriptome: developing a high-throughput Single-Neuron transcriptome Analysis based on Projections (SNAP-seq)
Investigators: Rui Chang and Le Zhang

Understanding self-deception
Investigators: Phillip Corlett, Zoe Chance, and Nick Turk-Browne

Synaptic mechanisms of flexible behavior
Investigators: James Jeanne and John Carlson