Simons Society of Fellows: People

Andrew Bahle is a postdoctoral fellow at the NYU Langone Neuroscience Institute in the lab of Dr. Michael Long. During his Ph.D. research, Bahle contributed to the development of new unsupervised learning techniques for neural data analysis and studied the neural mechanisms involved in the formation of auditory memories critical for song imitation in zebra finches.

Angus "Gus" Beane is a postdoctoral fellow at New York University in the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics with Professor David Hogg. Beane completed his B.A. and M.S. in Physics & Astronomy and the University of Pennsylvania in 2019 and completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 2025 with Professor Lars Hernquist.

Sydney Blattman is a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dana Pe'er at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center. During her Ph.D., Blattman studied phenotypic heterogeneity in bacterial populations. She developed PETRI-seq, the first high-throughput single-cell sequencing technology for microbes.

Adam C. Burnett is a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Ed Gerber in the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. Burnett is a climate scientist interested in large-scale atmospheric dynamics, tropical meteorology, and climate model improvement.

Hector Afonso Cruz has joined the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics at New York University as a postdoctoral fellow with Professors Yacine Ali-Haïmoud and Anthony Pullen. Hector completed his Ph.D. in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University under Professor Marc Kamionkowski, where he was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Previously, he received his bachelor’s degree in Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University.

Charlie Dowell is a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Vanessa Ruta at Rockefeller University. Dowell is interested in the circuit mechanisms controlling innate behaviors and their underlying computations. His current research investigates how fruit flies use their sense of smell to navigate large distances to find food.

Asma Farhat has joined the laboratory of Dr. Shruti Naik at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Allen Discovery Center for Neuroimmune Interactions as a postdoctoral fellow. Farhat holds a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Biomedical Science from the University of Sheffield and completed her Ph.D. in 2025 at the Medical University of Vienna and the Research Center for Molecular Medicine in the group of Professor Sylvia Knapp.

Kevin Hu is a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University mentored by Dan Lacker. His research interests lie broadly at the intersection of probability theory and mathematical physics.

Elise LePage has joined the Department of Mathematics at Columbia University as a postdoctoral research scientist under the mentorship of Professor Andrei Okounkov. She completed her Ph.D. in physics at the University of California, Berkeley under the supervision of Professor Mina Aganagic. She holds her M.Sc. in theoretical physics from the Perimeter Institute at the University of Waterloo and her B.A. in physics and mathematics from Hamilton College.

Alexis Stutzman Lewis is a postdoctoral research scientist in the laboratory of Dr. Bianca Jones Marlin at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute. As a graduate student in the laboratories of Drs. Jill Dowen and Daniel McKay, she identified epigenetic determinants of genome organization.

Noam Mazor is a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell Tech and Tel Aviv University, hosted by Rafael Pass and Joe Halpern. Mazor’s research focuses on complexity-based cryptography and its connections to meta-complexity. He is also interested in broader aspects of complexity theory.

Maëla Paul is a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University's Zuckerman Institute, where she works at the intersection of molecular neuroscience and developmental neurobiology. Currently, she is investigating how single neurons establish complex connection patterns with multiple targets across different brain regions.

Hamish Swanson is a postdoctoral researcher at the City University of New York Advanced Science Researcher Center in the group of Professor Rein Ulijn. Swanson’s current work seeks to elucidate how the molecular architecture of peptide amino acid sequences influences their intermolecular interactions and how these interactions, in turn, affect material properties such as solubility and the tendency to self-assemble.

Thomas Werkmeister is a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University working with Professors Aravind Devarakonda and Cory Dean. He received his Ph.D. in applied physics from Harvard University, under the mentorship of Professor Philip Kim. Previously, he obtained his B.S. from the University of Pittsburgh.

Jessica Zung is a postdoctoral research scientist at the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia University. Zung is broadly interested in understanding how neural circuits evolve to drive complex behaviors. Her doctoral research focused on the evolution of mosquito host preference and the chemistry of human and animal odor.