Department of Neurobiology

People

John Assad

Professor of Neurobiology
jassadathms.harvard.edu

I did my PhD at Harvard with David Corey, on biophysical mechanisms of mechano-electrical transduction in hair cells, and my postdoc at Baylor College of Medicine with John Maunsell, on higher order visual processing in primate parietal cortex. In my lab at Harvard, we worked for many years with NHPs on a wide variety of questions, including neuronal mechanisms of attention, inference and flexible coding in parietal cortex; economic decision making in orbitofontal cortex; and movement initiation in the basal ganglia-thalamic-cortical circuits. A few years ago, we switched to mice, to take advantage of the incredible genetic tools available in that species. We are mainly focusing now on neuronal mechanisms of self-initiated or self-timed movements, which provide a fascinating window into the mechanisms of voluntary movements, as well as movement disorders, such as Parkinson's disease. We use a combination of electrophysiological, behavioral, optical and computational approaches.

I am currently director of the PhD Program in Neuroscience at Harvard, and also PI of an NIH R25 Research Education Program training grant that supports the PiNBAC post-bac program at Harvard. 

(psst ... Go Bills!)

Adja Camara

PiNBAC postbac

BS, Spelman College. Project on motor-system plasticity

Allison Hamilos

former PhD student & Postdoc; ongoing lab affiliate

MD/PhD, Harvard. Project on role of endogenous midbrain dopamine neuron activity in self-timed movements. 

Currently Whitehead Fellow at Whitehead Institute/MIT (https://hamilos.wi.mit.edu/)

 

Lingfeng Hou

Postdoc

PhD, Harvard. Project on role of substantia nigra pars reticulata (SNR) in self-timed movements, and striatal contributions to SNR activity

Nigel Hunter

PhD student

BS/MS, Morehouse College/Medical School. Project on neuronal mechanisms of control of movement vigor

Eden Sayed

PhD Student

BS, UCLA. Doing a dual PhD in Philosophy and Neuroscience. Project on discovering the fundamental mechanisms of initiating movement. 

Daniel Svedberg

Postdoc

PhD, Brandeis University. Project on understanding basal ganglia's role in movement initiation. 

Annie Vonasek

rotating PhD student

BS, College of William & Mary. Working with Eden on origin of motor drive

Isabella Wijsman

visiting undergraduate intern

University of Exeter, UK. Working with Allison on role of dopamine in self-timed movements


Alumni

Mehdi Aghdaee Mentor, MassBio
Antonino Casile Assistant Professor, Univ of Messina, Italy
Daniel Chicharro Lecturer, City Univ of London, UK
Qinxin Ding Laboratory Technician, Whitehead Inst
John Elfar Professor & Chair of Orthopedics, Univ of Arizona College of Medicine
Emad Eskandar Professor & Chair of Neurosurgery, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center
Alessandra Fanini former postdoc, Verona, Italy
Jamie Fitzgerald Staff Data Scientist, LinkedIn
David Freedman Professor & Chair of Neurobiology, Univ. of Chicago
Omkar Ghenand PhD student, Univ. of California Berkeley
Sofia Grijalva Torres Undergraduate student, Univ. of Texas El Paso
Xue Han Professor, Boston Univ.
Todd Herrington Assistant Professor, Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School
Ye (Mary) Hong PhD student, Univ of Washington
Kim Irwin Senior nursing director of Procedural Services, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Irwin Lee Radiation oncologist, Kaiser Permanente
Gaby Maimon Professor Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Rockefeller Univ.
Jabari McGinnis PhD student, New York Univ.
Giulia Miceli System engineer IVECO Group, Torino, Italy
Joe Neimat Professor & Chair of Neurosurgery, Univ. of Louisville
Camillo Padoa-Schioppa Professor, Washington Univ. St. Louis
Atomu Sawatari Lecturer, Univ. of Sydney, Australia
Aaron Seitz Professor, Northeastern Univ.
Giuila Spedicato Engineer, Mozarc Medical, Mirandola, Italy
Mélie Talaron PhD student, Univ. of Bordeaux, France
Louis Toth Assistant Professor, Boston Univ.
Ziv Williams Associate Professor, Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School
Daniel Zaksas Chief Medical Officer - Marketing, Avalere Health
Suyang Zhang PhD student, Univ. of Illinois Urbana-Champaign