Michael Fernando, Ph.D.

Michael B. Fernando is a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Robert B. Darnell at Rockefeller University. His research aims to understand complex brain disease, such as schizophrenia, through advanced molecular biology tools and human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) as a model system. He is especially interested in neuronal synaptic plasticity, RNA alternative splicing, and the regulation of RNA by RNA-binding proteins.

Michael holds a B.S. in biology from St. Thomas University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the Icahn school of Medicine at Mount Sinai. During his doctoral studies, Michael was co-mentored by Kristen Brennand and Paul Slesinger and supported by a Gilliam Fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His prior research centered on dissecting the pathogenic mechanisms underlying rare heterozygous mutations in the neurexin-1 gene, leading to diverse phenotypic outcomes across neuropsychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.