Pandiculation of the Mind

Education:

California Institute of Technology, PhD - Computation and Neural Systems, in progress.

Harvard University, Bachelor's Degree - Neurobiology, June 2002.

Research Experience:

O'Doherty Lab, California Institute of Technology, January 2011-present.
Advisor: Professor John O'Doherty
Conducting set of experiments investigating human decision-making with and without external reward parametrically varied. Designed experimental tasks, data analysis programs, acquired and analyzed EEG and fMRI data from human subjects.

Shimojo Lab, California Institute of Technology, October 2009-December 2010.
Advisor: Professor Shinsuke Shimojo
Successfully wrote and got IRB approval for set of experiments investigating attention and decision-making in the parieto-prefrontal circuity of human brains. Designed experimental tasks, data analysis programs, acquired and analyzed fMRI data from human subjects.

Andersen Lab, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena CA, June 2006-present.
Advisor: Professor Richard Andersen
Successfully wrote and got IRB approval for set of experiments investigating attention and decision-making in the parieto-prefrontal circuity of macaque brains. Designed experimental tasks, data analysis programs, acquired and analyzed neurophysiology and MRI data on monkeys.

Riken Brain Science Institute Summer Program, Riken Institute, Wako-Shi, Japan, August 2007.
Participated in an intensive 11-day lecture course featuring a distinguished international faculty. Opportunity to see foreign labs (in Japan) and interact with highly accomplished graduate students and post-doctoral fellows from around the world.

MGH NMR Center, Radiology Department, Charlestown MA, June 2000-Present.
Supervisors: Professors Roger Tootell and Wim Vanduffel.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging of vision in monkeys. Improved experimental design, created stimuli, assisted in surgeries and training of monkeys, acquired and analyzed data, made final figures and helped in manuscript preparation for publication.

Initiative on Technology and Self, STS Department, MIT, Cambridge MA, May-September 2001.
Supervisor: Professor Sherry Turkle.
Ethnographic and psychoanalytic studies of child and adult interactions with humanoid robots and the roboticists that built them. Exploring philosophical ideas about identity, intelligence, aliveness, intentionality and humanness. Essay pending publication in initiative volume.

G.R.A.S.P. Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA, May-August 2000.
Supervisor: Professor Jim Ostrowski.
REU Research Award to conduct research into anguilloform locomotion (sinusoidal movements of eels and snakes). Successfully implemented a new design for an amphibious robot, conquering difficulties of waterproofing, discrete-link design, force generation due to body shape and communication.

Caribbean Primate Research Center, Cayo Santiago Facility, Punta Santiago, Puerto Rico, June-August 1999.
Supervisor: Professor Marc Hauser, Facility Director F. Bercovitch.
Harvard College Research Fellowship to conduct field behavioral and cognitive research on free-ranging rhesus monkeys for 3 months. Worked closely with a small team of researchers from Harvard University, University of Puerto Rico and NIH. Developed experimental designs and conditions to carry out on free-ranging primates, recorded high-quality vocal and facial expression for later experimental use and analysis.

Primate Cognition Laboratory, Psychology Department, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, spring term 1999.
Supervisor: Professor Marc Hauser.
Conducted cognitive and perceptual studies on laboratory Cotton-top tamarins under the supervision of Professor Marc Hauser. Worked closely with a graduate student to explore the communicative and auditory abilities of the tamarins. Implemented successful new experimental design to ask questions about the kinds of information conveyed in a five syllable long call.

Publications:

Hadj-Bouziane F, Bell AH, Knusten TA, Ungerleider LG, Tootell RB.
Perception of emotional expressions is independent of face selectivity in monkey inferior temporal cortex.
Proc Natl Acad Sci 2008 Apr 8;105(14):5591-6. pdf

Sasaki Y, Vanduffel W, Tsao DY, Knutsen T, Tyler CW, Tootell RBH.
Symmetry activates visual cortex in human and nonhuman primates.
PNAS 2005 Feb 22; 102(8):3159-3163. pdf

Tsao, DY, Friewald, WA, Knutsen, TA, Mandeville, JB, Tootell, RB
Faces and objects in macaque cerebral cortex.
Nat Neurosci 2003 Sep; 6(9):989-95. pdf

Tsao, DY, Vanduffel, W, Sasaki, Y, Fize, D, Knutsen, TA, Mandeville, JB, Wald, LL, Dale, AM, Rosen, BR,
VanEssen, DC, Livingstone, MA, Orban, GA, Tootell, RB
Stereopsis activates V3A and caudal intraparietal areas in macaque and humans.
Neuron 2003 July 31; 39(3):555-68. pdf

Acknowledgements

Hauser MD and Akre K. (2001) Asymmetries in the timing of facial and vocal expressions in rhesus monkeys: Implications for hemispheric specialization. Animal Behaviour 61:391-408. pdf

Varchavskaia P, Fitzpatrick P, Breazeal C (2001) Characterizing and Processing Robot-Directed Speech. Proceedings of IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots. pdf

Sasaki Y, Rajimehr R, Kim BW, Ekstrom LB, Vanduffel W, Tootell RBH (2006) The radial bias: a different slant on visual orientation sensitivity in human and nonhuman primates. Neuron 51(5):661-70. pdf

Teaching Experience:

Teaching Assistant, Computation and Neural Systems 150 Course, California Institute of Technology, September-December 2010.
Course Instructor: Professor Ralph Adolphs and Professor Henry Lester
Intense graduate level introduction to neurobiology course. Created lectures for weekly recitation sessions, created questions for problemsets, midterms and final and graded these questions.

Fellowship at Teacher Institute, Exploratorium, July-August 2010.
Supervisor: Linda Shore
Taught highschool and middle school science teachers about the neuroscience of color vision and helped develop curriculum activities to bring these concepts into the classroom.

Teaching Assistant, Computation and Neural Systems 247 Course, California Institute of Technology, January-March 2009.
Course Instructor: Professor Richard Andersen
Selected current key journal articles about relevant debates in neurobiology and computational neuroscience, created a website and organized students to give oral presentations on papers and write short research papers on a related topic of interest.

Fellowship at Teacher Institute, Exploratorium, July-August 2009.
Supervisor: Karen Kalumek and Linda Shore
Taught highschool and middle school science teachers about cutting edge neuroscience and helped develop curriculum activities to bring these concepts into the classroom.

Neuroscience Instructor, Young Engineering and Science Scholars Program, California Institute of Technology, June-July 2007.
Developed labs, problem sets, lectures for a complete introduction to Neuroscience for advanced high school students from under-represented socioeconomic groups.

Teaching Assistant, Computation and Neural Systems 120 Course, California Institute of Technology, February-May 2007.
Course Instructor: Professor Christof Koch
Provided Matlab tutorials, homework tutorials, graded assignments, met with students, gave a few lectures on memory and consciousness while professor out of town.

University of Georgia Environmental Education Program, Wahsega 4-H, Dahlonega GA, February-May 2000.
Supervisor: Facility Director Mark E. Hostetler, PhD.
Developed lesson plans and taught a diversity of classes from herpetology to stream ecology with a focus
on interactive experiences among the students, hands-on observation, and study outdoors or with live
animal specimens, for age groups ranging from 4th through 7th grades and from a distribution of
socioeconomic backgrounds.

Academic Honors:

• Sandia National Laboratory Excellence in Engineering Fellowship, 2006-present.
• National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates, SUNFEST, University of Pennsylvania, 2000.
• Harvard University Undergraduate Research Fellowship, Cayo Santiago Primate Facility, Puerto Rico, 1999.

Extracurriculars:

• Neuromorphic Engineering Student Society, President, 2006-2009.
• Graduate Student Council, Health Committee Representative, 2006-2007.
• Moore-Hufstedler Fund, Graduate Student Representative, 2006-2007.
• Events/Talks Chair of Student Committee On Premedical Education (SCOPE) 1999.
• Harvard Undergraduate Society for Neuroscience, on editorial board for publication, 1999.
• Varsity Fencing Team Leader, 2000-2002.

Skills:

• Languages: C, Matlab, some Java, Python, HTML
• OS: MacOS, Linux/Unix, DOS, Windows
• Experimental Apparatus: circuit building, design/construction/machining, 3D printing/prototyping
• Autocad, neurophysiology, chemical inactivation of neurons, fMRI/MRI, TMS