STEFAN OLINE PHD
Associate Professional Specialist
Stefan received his PhD in 2015 from the lab of Mike Burger at Lehigh University. He worked with Mike Halassa at NYU and MIT optimizing tools for physiology and photometry.
Email: soline@princeton.edu
MAE GUTHMAN PHD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Mae received her PhD from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in 2019 working with Molly Huntsman and Diego Restrepo on the cell-type specific control exerted by GABAergic interneurons on the microcircuitry and plasticity of the mouse basolateral amygdala. Broadly, she is interested in the role of and mechanisms underlying neuromodulatory coordination of neural circuits during social behaviors. Her postdoctoral research focuses on the role of estrogen in orchestrating the activity of neurons during various social behaviors in mice.
​
BARTUL MIMICA PHD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Bartul received his PhD in 2019 from the lab of Jonathan Whitlock at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, combining e-phys with 3D tracking to study postural representation in the rat neocortex. True to his interest in ethology, he will continue his postdoctoral work exploring the midbrain circuits involved in sonic behaviors.
Email: bmimica@princeton.edu
MEENAKSHI ASOKAN PHD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Meenakshi received her PhD in 2022 from Harvard University, working with Daniel Polley on the transformation from sensation to perception and the underlying neural representations and plasticity across sensory and limbic hierarchies. For her postdoctoral work, she is interested in the neural circuits and computations that drive flexible state-dependent social behaviors, and she hopes to synthesize the reductionism in sensory neuroscience with the richness and complexity in naturalistic social interactions.
Email: masokan94@gmail.com
.jpg)
NANCY MACK PHD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Nancy received her PhD in 2022 from Drexel University, working with Wen-Jun Gao to study sex differences in prefrontal cortical circuits involved in social investigation through use of functional manipulation tools and fiber photometry. Nancy joined the Falkner lab for her postdoctoral work to dive further into her interests in the neural circuit computations underlying the intersection of internal states, sex-differences, and behavior.
Email: nm7448@princeton.edu
ANNA ZHUKOVSKAYA
Postdoctoral fellow (Joint with Witten)
Anna received her PhD in 2023 from Princeton University, working with Ilana Witten on how aversive teaching signals produce brainwide and behavioral substrates of stress susceptibility using calcium imaging, optogenetics, and computational methods. She is interested in the neural circuit mechanisms and computations underlying social behaviors.
Email: az3 - at - princeton.edu
DAKOTA BLACKMAN
Graduate Student
Dakota completed her bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience at Barnard College, where she worked with Josh Gordon and Elizabeth Bauer, studying the neural circuitry and molecular mechanisms underlying anxiety. After graduating, she spent two years working as a Research Assistant at Rockefeller University with Winrich Freiwald and Eric Schmidt, with the goal of developing and applying molecular profiling techniques to projection neurons relevant to social cognition.
Email: dakotab@princeton.edu
JORGE IRAVEDRA GARCIA
Graduate Student
Jorge completed his bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology at University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. He worked in the laboratory of Dr. Gregory Quirk researching how circuits from the prefrontal cortex to the amygdala and striatum regulate active avoidance. His graduate work currently focuses on investigating how subcortical brain networks regulate drive and reinforcement of social behaviors.
Email: jmig@princeton.edu
.png)
DAVID ALLEN
Graduate Student
After receiving his bachelors in behavioral neuroscience at Northeastern University, David worked in the lab of Todd Anthony to study the regulation of fear and anxiety-like behaviors in lateral septum. David is interested in developing novel computational approaches to investigate innate mouse behavior. Specifically, his thesis focuses on how mice form representations of familiar versus conspecific territories in the brain, and how social experiences shape different marking and territory-dependent behaviors.
Email: da9769@princeton.edu
SAE YOKOYAMA
Graduate Student (she/they)
Sae is a proud (almost native) of California. She spent her research education in NorCal, graduating from UC Davis where she was first introduced to systems neuroscience in Dr. Brian Trainor’s lab. Upon graduating, she worked as a lab tech at UCSF. First, with Dr. Kira Poskanzer to study astrocytes, then with Dr. Graeme Trainor to study homeostatic plasticity. As a graduate student she hopes to conduct interdisciplinary neuroscience research looking at the effects of hormones on modulating neuronal and astrocytic networks, thereby affecting social behaviors.
On her off time, you can usually find her gaming or trying to keep her plants alive.
Email: saeyokoyama@princeton.edu
IAN GREGG
Graduate Student
Ian completed his bachelor’s degree in biological sciences at Cornell University. While there, Ian worked in the lab of Dr. Nilay Yapici studying how the brain mediates internal state changes in Drosophila. After that, Ian joined Dr. Alex Kwan’s systems neuroscience lab at Yale University as a postbaccalaureate researcher. There, he studied the neural and behavioral effects of psychedelic drugs in mice. For his graduate work, Ian hopes to investigate how experience affects hypothalamic circuitry mediating the expression of aggressive behavior as well as how hormonal signaling in specific nodes of the social brain network affects territoriality in mice.
Email: ian.gregg@princeton.edu
JOVIAN CHEUNG
Graduate Student (Jointly advised, Pena)
Jovian completed her bachelor’s degree at UCLA with a major in Cognitive Science and minor in Neuroscience, during which she worked in Dr. Scott Wilke's lab to investigate the role of the anterior cingulate cortex in effort-based decision making. For her graduate work, she is interested in how early-life thyroid hormone depletion can influence brain-wide responses to acute social stressors in adulthood.
​
Email: jovianc@princeton.edu
DEXTER TSIN (he/him)
Graduate Student (Jointly advised, Tatiana Engel)
Dexter completed his bachelor’s degree at UCSD with a major in bioinformatics. He worked in Dr. Kay Tye’s lab to investigate how mice facial expression correlates with behavioral states during learning. He also worked in Dr. Talmo Pereira’s lab to design unsupervised machine learning methods for behavior segmentation. As a graduate student joint between Engel Lab and Falkner Lab, Dexter hopes to develop new computational methods to understand dynamics of behavioral and neural data during social behavior.
​
Email: dexter.tsin@princeton.edu
.jpg)
POLINA CHEREPANOVA
Graduate Student
Polina completed her bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences at Northwestern University, where she conducted research in Dr. Andrew Miri’s lab to characterize the interactions between the motor cortex and striatum during naturalistic limb movements in mice. For her graduate work, she is interested in studying how fluctuations in gonadal hormones impact functional connectivity between various social brain regions.
​
email: cherepanova@princeton.edu
ALISSA LE
Research Technician
Alissa completed her bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience at Muhlenberg College. During this time, she investigated neural and hormonal mechanisms of the phenomenon of social buffering in the lab of Dr. Leah Wilson. Broadly, Alissa is interested in neuroendocrinology and its relationship to social behavior.
​
Email: al1824@princeton.edu
Lab Alumni
TOMOHITO MINAKUCHI
Graduate Student
Tomohito (Tomo) completed his medical degree at Keio University, Tokyo, Japan. In his medical school, he got training in molecular biology in the Siomi lab, and circuitry neuroscience in the Tanaka & Takata lab. He also worked with Dr Hideyuki Okano, performing calcium imaging of rat and marmoset cortex after graduating.
Emaile: tomohito - at - princeton.edu
LUCY SIRRS
Research Technician
Lucy received her bachelor’s degree in neuroscience from Princeton. She conducted her senior thesis research in the Falkner lab, examining how sex hormones shape social behavior across sex and social context. She is broadly interested in understanding the neural underpinnings of sex and sex differences and is excited to continue her work with the lab!
​
Email: lsirrs@princeton.edu
