Simons Society of Fellows: People

Daniel Alabi is starting a postdoctoral research scientist position at the Data Science Institute and the Department of Computer Science at Columbia University. He received an S.M. from Harvard and before that obtained a B.A. in mathematics and a B.A. in computer science from Carleton College. His research interests are broadly in the mathematical foundations of data science.

Morris Ang will be a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Mathematics at Columbia University, working with Professor Julien Dubedat. He is completing his Ph.D. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the guidance of Professor Scott Sheffield. Previously, he completed a B.S. in mathematics and a M.S. in statistics at Stanford University.

Eric Arsenault is a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University in the group of Professor Xiaoyang Zhu. He received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, under the mentorship of Professor Graham Fleming. Prior to that, Arsenault earned his B.A. in chemistry and in physics from Wesleyan University.

Naama Aviram is a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Professor Luciano Marraffini at Rockefeller University. She received both her M.S. and her Ph.D. from the Department of Molecular Genetics of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel.

Begüm Aydin is a postdoctoral researcher in the Laboratory of Mucosal Immunology at the Rockefeller University, working with Dr. Daniel Mucida. She received her Ph.D. from New York University and her B.S. from Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey. In her doctoral studies under the supervision of Dr. Esteban Mazzoni, Aydin studied how proneural transcription factors specify neuronal fate.

Beatrice Barra is a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Professor Dmitry Rinberg at the New York University Neuroscience Institute. She received her M.Sc. in biomedical engineering from Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and her Ph.D. in medical sciences from the University of Fribourg (Switzerland).

Jarosław Błasiok is starting a postdoctoral fellowship in the Theory of Computation group at Columbia University. He is presently finishing his Ph.D. at the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University

Abigail Bodner will be joining the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University as a postdoctoral fellow in Professor Laure Zannaʼs research group. Bodnerʼs research interests span a broad range of topics involving climate dynamics, geophysical fluid dynamics and turbulence.

Philipp Brand is a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Vanessa Ruta at the Rockefeller University. He holds a B.S. in biology and an M.S. in genetics and evolution from the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, and a Ph.D. in population biology from the University of California, Davis.

Michael Chapman is going to be a postdoctoral researcher for the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University under the mentorship of Professors Subhash Khot and Oded Regev. He is currently completing his Ph.D. in pure mathematics at the Hebrew University under the supervision of Professors Alex Lubotzky and Nati Linial.

Ashley Chui is a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Michele Pagano at the New York University School of Medicine. Chui’s current postdoctoral research focuses on a family of ubiquitin ligases, the cullin-RING ligases and how these ligases and, importantly, its substrates regulate cellular functions such as the cell cycle through timed proteasomal degradation.

Raphael (Raffi) Cohn is a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University. He earned his bachelor’s degrees in cognitive science and computer science from the University of Pennsylvania, his master’s degree in the mathematical foundations of computer science from Oxford University and his Ph.D. at the Rockefeller University.

Benem Davids will be joining the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Columbia University as a postdoctoral research scientist in Dr. Stephen Goff's laboratory. Davids plans to investigate ancient viral relics that have become a stable part of our genome, which play a critical role during brain development, learning and memory, and the regulation of neuronal gene expression.

Aravind Devarakonda will be a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Professor Cory Dean at Columbia University. Devarakonda’s research lies at the intersection of fundamental condensed matter physics and solid state chemistry and has focused on synthesizing and probing new quantum materials as a pathway to realizing new states of matter.

Dr. Robert W. Fernandez is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Oliver Hobert at Columbia University. His current work focuses on how transcriptional programs regulate the development of neural circuits in C. elegans.

Michele Fornea will be joining the Department of Mathematics at Columbia University as a postdoctoral fellow after a year at Princeton with Professor Christopher Skinner. Fornea completed his Ph.D. at McGill University under the guidance of professors Henri Darmon and Adrian Iovita.

Emanuele Galiffi is a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Professor Andrea Alù at the Advanced Science Research Center, City University of New York, where he studies fundamental aspects of wave propagation in nanostructured materials, also known as metamaterials.

Carla Golden is a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Christine Constantinople at New York University. Her current postdoctoral research focuses on the regulation of value-based decision-making by estradiol, a gonadal hormone. Through this work, she hopes to elucidate the process by which natural fluctuations in estradiol mediate reward learning through the modulation of dopamine in the brain.

Leah Houri-Zeevi is a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Leslie Vosshall at the Rockefeller University. She received her Ph.D. and M.S. from the department of neurobiology at Tel Aviv University, under the supervision of Dr. Oded Rechavi. Her graduate work focused on understanding the rules of transgenerational inheritance of non-DNA-based information.

Sophie Huiberts will be a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University in the Department of Computer Science. She is completing her Ph.D. at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica. She holds an M.S. degree in mathematics and B.S. degrees in computer science and mathematics from Utrecht University. Huiberts' work is focused on geometric aspects of combinatorial optimization.

Patrick Kennedy is a postdoctoral researcher studying the evolution of animal social behavior. Starting in January 2021, he will be based at Columbia University, working with Dr. Dustin Rubenstein. He will be focusing on ecological and climatic drivers of social insect cooperation, supported by the Simons Junior Fellowship and a Marie Curie Global Fellowship, using theoretical models and field experiments with African wasps.

Megan Kirchgessner is a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Robert Froemke at the New York University School of Medicine. She received her Ph.D. in neurosciences from the University of California, San Diego, and her B.A. in cognitive sciences and psychology from Rice University. She is interested in how neural circuits for sensory processing are constructed and modified by experience and used for social behaviors.

Lachlan Lancaster will be joining the Department of Astronomy at Columbia University where he will be working with Professor Greg Bryan on understanding the formation and evolution of star clusters. Lachlan is currently finishing his Ph.D. at Princeton University where he has worked on a number of topics in theoretical astrophysics, including cosmology, exotic dark matter models and galactic dynamics.

Timothy Large is going to be a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Mathematics at Columbia University, mentored by Professor Mohammed Abouzaid. Large’s work combines ideas from homotopy theory and Floer homology to study problems in symplectic geometry and low-dimensional topology.

Emily Mackevicius is currently a postdoctoral neuroscientist at Columbia University in the lab of Professor Dmitriy Aronov. She received her B.S. in mathematics at the University of Chicago, and her Ph.D. in neuroscience at MIT, in the lab of Professor Michale Fee. Her research investigates what learning mechanisms in the brain give us the power to form and use memories.

Jennifer Merritt studies how differentiation in the genetic architecture of neurobiological systems contributes to the evolution of behavior. Merritt is a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Andrés Bendesky in the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia University.

Amy Norovich is a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Andrés Bendesky in the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia University. She received her B.S. in biology from MIT and her Ph.D. in biology from Columbia University.

Oliver Philcox will be joining the High Energy Theory Group at Columbia University as a postdoctoral fellow with Professors Lam Hui and Colin Hill. He is currently completing his Ph.D. in the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University, under the supervision of Professors David Spergel and Matias Zaldarriaga, and is a visiting student at the Institute for Advanced Study.

Fedor Popov is an incoming postdoctoral researcher at New York University, where he will be working with Professor Sergei Dubovsky. His research interests encompass a variety of cutting-edge problems in theoretical physics. During his Ph.D., he has mostly been studying properties of large-N models and tensor models.

Joan Pulupa is a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Stavros Lomvardas in the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia University. Pulupa is interested in developing and using live-cell imaging technologies to study how changes in genome organization and storage affect cell differentiation and gene expression.

Cynthia Steinhardt is a postdoctoral research fellow in the laboratory of Professor Mark Churchland at Columbia University. She graduated with an A.B. in neuroscience from Princeton University and received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. In the Churchland lab, she will be working on understanding how electrical stimulation drives populations of neurons to produce complex behavior in the motor system.

Kaia Tombak is a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Jessica Rothman’s nutritional ecology laboratory at Hunter College, CUNY. Tombak is interested in the ecological factors that drive individuals to group and societies to take different shapes, such as egalitarian or hierarchical structures, stable or fission-fusion groups, and mate-guarding vs. territorial mating strategies.

Andre B. Toussaint is a postdoctoral research scientist in the laboratory of Dr. Ishmail Abdus-Saboor in the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia University. Prior to arriving at Columbia, Andre earned his Ph.D. in psychology and neuroscience at Temple University under the mentorship of Dr. Mathieu Wimmer.

Pooja Viswanathan is a postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Erin L. Rich at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in neuroscience completed at the University of Tübingen and the International Max Planck Research School.

Sebastian Wolff will be joining the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University as a postdoctoral associate. Wolff is interested in the analysis and verification of concurrent computer systems. He has contributed the first automated verification approach for lock-free data structures that manually manage their memory.

Dr. Lynn Yap is a postdoctoral research fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Richard Axel in the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia University. She completed her Ph.D. in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, where she worked with Dr. Michael E. Greenberg. Prior to Harvard, she received her B.S. in chemistry and biology from Yale University.

Songtian Sonia Zhang will be joining the Department of Physics at Columbia University as a postdoctoral research fellow in Professor Dmitri Basov’s group. Zhang obtained her bachelor’s in physics at the University of Waterloo and her Ph.D. from the Princeton University physics department under Professor Zahid Hasan. Zhang was also awarded the Kusaka Memorial Prize by this department for outstanding performance in research and professional promise.