Director MacBrain Resource Center and Research Scientist, Department of Neuroscience
Leadership
Senior Staff
IT, Manager
Phil Barello is the Computer Systems Manager for Yale School of Medicine Department of Neuroscience. He received an A.A.S in Business Management, with concentration in Audio Engineering; an interdisciplinary B.Sc. with concentrations in Computer Science, Business Management, and Philosophy; and an M.Sc. in Computer Science, focusing on sensory networks, machine learning, and cybersecurity. Mr Barello is currently pursuing a Doctor of Technology degree at Purdue Polytechnic Institute, and involved in system development and maintenance for MacBrainResource.Research Scientist in Neuroscience
Many years of experience in worldwide laboratories (Russia, France, Norway and Hungary) lend to expertise in the methods of scanning and transmission electron microscopy including pre- and post-embedding immunolabeling. This also let me introduce to Yale the method of three-dimensional reconstruction of large cell fragments such as neuron cell bodies or processes from serial electron micrographs.
Student Staff
- Ashley Aké is a rising junior in Davenport College studying Ethnicity, Race, and Migration. Joining the MacBrain Resource Center team she will be assisting with the scanning and inventory taking of materials in collections 1-6.
- Esmeralda Alejo joined MBRC in 2023. She is a sophomore in Timothy Dwight college majoring in Psychology and pursuing a certificate in Education Studies. Currently she is helping with the inventorying and cataloguing of materials in collections 1-4. She is interested in studying how psychology can inform educational pedagogies.
Postgraduate Associate (Neuroscience)
Emma received her B.S. in Bioengineering in 2022 from Lehigh University. She joined MBRC in early March 2024 as a Postgraduate Associate. Emma is studying ependymal cell migration and development of the choroid plexus using materials in MBRC Collection 1.Undergraduate Student
Silas Botham is a sophomore pursuing a B.S. in Neuroscience and a certificate in Education. He is currently engaged in a study of the anterior commissure and archiving materials in collection 6.Undergraduate Student
Postgraduate Associate
Cristina Canales received her B.S. in Neuroscience from Bucknell University ('24) and join the MBRC as a Postgraduate Associate. Her research focuses on cellular and systems neurodegenerative processes involving motor and cognitive deficits as those in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.- Mari Elliott is going into her second year at Yale College. She plans to double-major in Biochemistry and English. At the moment, she is scanning and cataloging various materials.
Postgraduate Associate (Neuroscience)
Lucy Greene joined MBRC in 2022 as a histology archivist. After receiving her degree in Architectural Design (Yale College '23), she resumed as a Postgraduate Research Associate. She is currently working on several projects that apply machine learning image analysis to archive images, primarily in MBRC Collection 6.Postdoctoral Associate (Neuroscience)
Khuleshwari joined Yale in 2024 as a Postdoctoral Associate at MBRC under the supervision of Dr. Pasko Rakic and Dr. Alvaro Duque. Her research interests include neurological diseases and therapeutics. She finished her PhD in India and her research was focused on genistein (GEN) mediated learning and memory. Before coming to Yale, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she worked on inflammasomes pathway in PD and SP-1 obesity linked diseases.Postgraduate Associate (Neuroscience)
Postgraduate Associate
Valeria Mendoza Silva received a B.S. in Psychology, with a minor in Neuroscience, from the “Universidad de los Andes” (Bogota-Colombia). As a member of the MBRC she is currently engaged in a systematic review aiming to elucidate the impact of sex-specific neuroinflammation differences on rodent and non-human primate models of Parkinson's disease (PD) hence contributing to a deeper understanding of its pathology.Graduate Student
Vahulabaranan Rajagopalan is a Yale graduate student pursuing a Master’s in Personalized Medicine and Applied Engineering (PMAE), building on his Biotechnology background from India. He joined the MBRC as a Cellular Analyst in Fall 2024. His research interests focus on bridging neurological theories with practical applications, contributing to collaborative projects that enhance our understanding of brain function. As part of the Yale community, he is committed to advancing interdisciplinary research and developing new methodologies to benefit both academic and clinical initiatives.Undergraduate Student
Mikhail Rodov is a freshman in Saybrook College prospectively studying Neuroscience and pursuing a certificate in Education Studies. Currently, he is scanning and cataloging various materials and pursuing further research projects.
Associated Faculty
Albert E. Kent Professor of Neuroscience and Professor of Psychology; Member, Kavli Institute of Neuroscience at Yale University
Dr. Arnsten is an international expert on the molecular regulation of higher cortical circuits, and a member of the National Academy of Medicine. She received her B.A. in Neuroscience from Brown University in 1976 (where she created the Neuroscience major), and her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from UCSD in 1981. She did post-doctoral research with Dr. Susan Iversen at Cambridge University in the UK, and with Dr. Patricia Goldman-Rakic at Yale. Dr. Arnsten's research examines the neural basis of higher cognition. Her work has revealed that the newly evolved cortical circuits that underlie higher cognition are uniquely regulated at the molecular level, conferring vulnerability in mental illness and age-related cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer's Disease. Arnsten's research has led to new treatments for cognitive disorders in humans, including the successful translation of guanfacine (IntunivTM)... Associate Professor Term; Clinical Veterinarian
Jenn came to Yale in 2015 with 3 years of experience as a laboratory animal clinician, and she became board-certified in laboratory animal medicine that year. She has also spent 2 years as a small animal practitioner and has 1 year of experience in shelter medicine. She attended veterinary school at University of Illinois and completed her laboratory animal medicine residency at Emory University. Jenn practices clinical medicine, is heavily involved in the resident training program, and provides support for biomedical research. Her most recent collaborations have involved translational surgical models used to study peritoneal dialysis, cardiac tamponade, and short bowel syndrome.Associate Professor Tenure; Associate Professor, Neuroscience; Member, Kavli Institute for Neuroscience
Steve Chang is an Associate Professor of Psychology and of Neuroscience at Yale University. He is also a member of the Wu Tsai Institute and the Kavli Institute for Neuroscience at Yale. He is the co-Director of Undergraduate Studies of Yale's Neuroscience (NSCI) major. His research aims to understand the neural circuit mechanisms of social cognition and social decision-making. Major research approaches include using naturalistic social interaction paradigms combined with state-of-the-art behavioral and neural technologies. The ultimate goal of the research program is to elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying social cognition and to learn how these processes may be disrupted in psychiatric conditions with social deficits.Jean and David W. Wallace Professor of Comparative Medicine and Professor of Neuroscience and of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences; Chair, Comparative Medicine
Tamas Horvath is Professor and Chair of the Department of Comparative Medicine and Professor of Neurobiology and Ob/Gyn at Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut. He is also the Director for the Yale Program on Integrative Cell Signaling and Neurobiology of Metabolism. He received a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M.) degree from the Faculty of Veterinary Sciences in Budapest, Hungary, and a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree from the University of Szeged in Hungary. His research has been focusing on neuronal circuitries that support physiological and pathological homeostatic conditions, including processes associated with reproduction, energy metabolism and neurodegeneration.Assistant Professor of Neuroscience and of Psychology
I have a broad background in signal processing, psychophysics, and computational modeling from pre-doctoral and doctoral work. My doctoral research resulted in the first comprehensive model of visual crowding, a ubiquitous phenomenon in peripheral vision that severely degrades our ability to identify objects in clutter. Crowding is especially detrimental in patients with central vision loss. We also demonstrated that the oculomotor system has a remarkable ability to rapidly and persistently adapt to simulated central vision loss in normally sighted human subjects. During my post-doctoral training at the Salk Institute, I employed advanced electrophysiological and optogenetic techniques in the alert non-human primate to investigate the neuronal mechanisms of shape processing and attention in the visual cortex. My research has uncovered the detailed spatio-temporal structure of shape... Dorys McConnell Duberg Professor of Neuroscience and Professor of Neurology
Associate Dean for Curriculum; Director of Innovation in Medical Education, MD Program; Emeritus Associate Professor, Neuroscience; Senior Research Scientist, Neuroscience; Director, Medical Studies, Neuroscience
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Dr. Hyojung Seo received her bachelor and master's degree in Psychology from Seoul National University in the Republic of Korea. She then completed her Ph.D. in behavioral neuroscience with her thesis research on the neurophysiology of the oculomotor system. Dr. Seo continued her research in decision neuroscience as a post-doctoral fellow and associate research scientist at Yale University and joined the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University as an assistant professor in 2016.Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Neuroscience, and Professor of Comparative Medicine, of Genetics and of Psychiatry; Executive Director, Genome Editing Center
Professor of Comparative Medicine and of Ophthalmology and Visual Science; Chief of Pathology, Comparative Medicine
Caroline Zeiss is a Professor of Comparative Medicine, and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences. She is Chief of Pathology in Comparative Medicine, and established and directed its Pathology Research Core from 2005-2019. Trained as an anatomic pathologist and laboratory animal veterinarian, Dr. Zeiss specializes in comparative neuropathology, ophthalmic pathology and non-human primate pathology. Her experience in neuropathology intersects with her research in animal to human translation of therapies for neurologic disease, and the graduate level course she teaches in comparative neuroanatomy. Similarly, her interest in non-human primate pathology stems from her ongoing clinical role as a laboratory animal clinician, almost exclusively practicing with simians. Dr. Zeiss’ expertise in ophthalmic pathology is informed by her...
Former Members
Ryan Bose-Roy - Undergraduate Student
Fatima Kamara - Undergraduate Student
George Nighswander - Undergraduate Student
Minji Park - Undergraduate Student
Aviva Rabin-Court- Undergraduate Student
Montserrat Rodriguez - Undergraduate Student
Lynn Selemon - Co-Director
Taylor Spadory - Undergraduate Student, Postgraduate Associate
Kyler Worthington - Undergraduate Student