From the Lab to the Limelight - Blog version of our #TraineeTuesday Twitter series
For today's #TraineeTuesday, please welcome Andrew Moberly, PhD, a postdoc in the labs of Michael Higley, MD, PhD, and Jessica Cardin, PhD! Andrew was recently awarded a K99/R00, marking a significant step forward toward running his own research lab.
Before Andrew started his postdoc, he had no experience in optical imaging. He came to Yale for the chance to use cutting-edge imaging techniques, specifically to study the neocortex (a part of the brain that plays a key role in cognition, sensation, and perception).
Imaging came in handy: In a paper published in Nature Neuroscience, Andrew looked at how acetylcholine (a neuromodulator) coordinates activity in neural networks during different behavioral states. Collaborating with Sweyta Lohani, PhD, a postdoc in the Cardin Lab, Andrew was interested in how this neuromodulator can confer flexibility to activity patterns in neural circuits.
Now he's interested in how learning changes neural circuit activity.
How does fear learning—a process that teaches the brain to fear a certain stimulus—impact reconfiguration of cortical networks? Andrew's current K99 project aims to determine which specific cortical cells and circuits are impacted when visual cues become associated with emotion.
A broad goal of the project is to understand how sensory cortical brain areas are modified by sensory experience in order to serve behavioral output
Andrew Moberly, PhD
Earning his K99 has enabled him to think more concretely about his future independent research program. What infrastructure — i.e., people, equipment, etc. — will he need to pursue his research goals? “In the short term will this research program be compelling when pitched to a faculty search committee? Is there room for it to expand and be taken in new directions in the long term?” Andrew continued.
In college, Andrew didn’t fully understand what being an “academic researcher” entailed. His first hands-on experience with rodent models happened fairly late in his undergraduate career.
He was studying the relationship between activity in the brain and behavior, using experimental apparatuses that were largely home-built.
I quickly learned that sometimes being a neuroscience researcher meant you had to be part electrician, part software engineer, part graphical designer. I continue to enjoy this aspect of neuroscience research—on any given day you might be using a completely different set of skills from the day before. And there is always something that needs troubleshooting.
Andrew Moberly, PhD
From here, Andrew will enter the academic job market, with hopes of starting his own research lab. He intends to study the neural basis of sensory-guided behavior.
Andrew made sure to shout out his mentors — all the way from undergraduate to his postdoc — for teaching him what it means to be an academic researcher.
“I’ve largely been inspired by my mentors and peers throughout my research experience. As a research assistant I was trained by two graduate students. They were incredibly hard working, passionate, and creative and motivated me to go to graduate school,” Andrew said. “Since then, my graduate and postdoc advisors have been incredible mentors and scientific role models — I’m working towards following in their footsteps career-wise!”