Our Team
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David J. Freedman, Ph.D.Principal Investigator
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Grace NelsonLab Manager
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Kenneth Latimer, Ph.D.Postdoctoral Researcher
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Sihai Li, Ph.D.Postdoctoral Researcher
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Matthew James Tilley, Ph.D.Postdoctoral Researcher
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Vinay Shirhatti, Ph.D.Postdoctoral Researcher
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Ali AlamriGraduate Student
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Matt RosenGraduate Student
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Barbara PeysakhovichGraduate Student
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Oliver ZhuGraduate Student
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Grace DiRisioGraduate Student
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Rory CooleyGraduate Student
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Samuel DavidResearch Technician
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Suha ChangUndergraduate Researcher
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Alex MedoffUndergraduate Researcher
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Amelia SimonoffUndergraduate Researcher

David J. Freedman, Ph.D.
Degree: Ph.D., Systems Neuroscience
Professor, Department of Neurobiology
Chair, Graduate Program in Computational Neuroscience
The University of Chicago
Member:
Graduate Program in Computational Neuroscience
Graduate Program in Neurobiology
Grossman Institute for Neuroscience, Quantitative Biology, and Human Behavior
Email: dfreedman@uchicago.edu

Grace Nelson
Degree: B.A. Anthropology and Animal Behavior
Favorite Language: Russian
More about Grace: Grace has conducted field research with multiple Central American primate species, and plans to continue studying primate behavior in the future.
Email: nelsong@uchicago.edu
Degree: Ph.D., Neuroscience
Favorite Languages: Julia, MATLAB, C
More about Kenneth: Kenneth develops and applies statistical tools to answer questions about visual processing and decision making in the primate cortex. His work primarily focuses on characterizing spike trains recorded in the lateral intraparietal (LIP) cortex and frontal eye fields (FEF) during categorization tasks. He is interested in understanding how categorical representations in these areas depend on training history.
Email: latimerk@uchicago.edu
Website: www.kennethlatimer.com

Sihai Li, Ph.D.
Degree: Ph.D. Neuroscience
Favorite Language: Matlab, Python
More about Sihai: Sihai is interested in exploring how neural activity represents higher cognitive functions and manipulates subjects’ behavioral outputs. Before joining the team, Sihai finished his PhD with research illustrating functional specialization of different cortical areas in Working Memory.
Email: sihaili@uchicago.edu

Matthew James Tilley, Ph.D.
Degree: Ph.D., Particle Physics
Favorite Language: Python
More about Matthew: Matthew is interested in developing biologically inspired artificial neural networks to gain both a greater understanding of them and their biological analogues. Before joining the Lab, Matthew completed his PhD investigating decays of B mesons at CERN’s LHCb experiment.
Email: mjtilley@uchicago.edu

Vinay Shirhatti, Ph.D.

Ali Alamri
Degree: B.S., Neuroscience
Favorite Language: Python
More about Ali: I’m an expert doodle artist and I have never burned a loaf of banana bread in my life.
Email: ahalamri@uchicago.edu

Matt Rosen
Degree: B.A., Computer Science
Favorite Language: Python
More about Matt: Interested in the logic of biological computations + in search of the perfect pour-over.
Email: mattrosen@uchicago.edu

Barbara Peysakhovich
Degree: M.S., Behavioral Neurosciences
Favorite Language: Estonian
Email: bpeysakhovich@uchicago.edu

Oliver Zhu
Degree: B.S., Biochemistry
Favorite Language: Classical piano music
More about Oliver: Oliver is interested in how neural mechanisms underlying categorization and decision making are employed and coordinated across multiple brain regions. He also dabbles in the dark arts of artificial neural networks and hopes that it will solve all the problems in his life. Whatever problems remain he hopes to solve with ramen and hamburgers.
Email: zhuou@uchicago.edu

Grace DiRisio
Email: gdirisio@uchicago.edu

Rory Cooley
Email: racooley@uchicago.edu

Samuel David
Degree: B.A., Neuroscience Favorite Language: Poetry More about Sam: An original poem about recording from neurons: I met It the other day; Its face was waves Its voice was rain. Email: samueldavid@uchicago.edu

Suha Chang

Alex Medoff

Amelia Simonoff
Degree: B.S. candidate, Neuroscience
Favorite Language: Russian
More about Amelia: Amelia is a Neuroscience major at UChicago, and has been working in Dr. Freedman’s lab since her first quarter. She also plays piano and is often seen performing on campus. She hopes to apply to medical schools in a few years.
Email: asimonoff@uchicago.edu
Postdoctoral and Graduate Alumni
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Pantea Moghimi, Ph.D.Postdoctoral Researcher
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Nicolas Masse, Ph.D.Postdoctoral Researcher
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W. Jeffrey Johnston, Ph.D.Graduate Student
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Christopher Hauser, Ph.D.Postdoctoral Researcher
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Yang Zhou, Ph.D.Postdoctoral Researcher
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Guilhelm Ibos, Ph.D.Postdoctoral Researcher
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Krithika Mohan, Ph.D.Graduate Student
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Xinqiang Ding, Ph.D.Postdoctoral Researcher
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Jared Clemens, Ph.D.Graduate Student
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Alex Gonzalez, Ph.D.Graduate Student
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Jillian McKee, M.D., Ph.D.Graduate Student
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Christopher Rishel, M.D., Ph.D.Graduate Student
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Arup Sarma, M.D., Ph.D.Graduate Student
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Sruthi Swaminathan, Ph.D.Graduate Student

Pantea Moghimi, Ph.D.

Nicolas Masse, Ph.D.
Degree: Ph.D., Computational Neuroscience
Favorite Language: Python
Email: wjeffreyjohnston@gmail.com
Website: wj2.github.io

Christopher Hauser, Ph.D.

Yang Zhou, Ph.D.
Degree: Ph.D., Neuroscience
Currently: Peking University

Guilhelm Ibos, Ph.D.

Krithika Mohan, Ph.D.
Degree: Ph.D., Computational Neuroscience
Lab Member: 2013 – 2019
Currently: Postdoctoral Researcher, Doris Tsao’s Lab, California Institute of Technology

Xinqiang Ding, Ph.D.

Jared Clemens, Ph.D.

Alex Gonzalez, Ph.D.

Jillian McKee, M.D., Ph.D.
Degree: M.D., Ph.D., Computational Neuroscience
Lab Member: 2009 – 2014

Christopher Rishel, M.D., Ph.D.
Degree: M.D., Ph.D., Computational Neuroscience
Lab Member: 2008 – 2012

Arup Sarma, M.D., Ph.D.
Degree: M.D., Ph.D., Computational Neuroscience
Lab Member: 2010 – 2015

Sruthi Swaminathan, Ph.D.
Degree: Ph.D., Neurobiology
Lab Member: 2008 – 2012
Currently: Research Specialist, Unilever Corporation
Lab Alumni
Alex Baranski | Sam Barnett | Rheza Budiono | Chris DoCampo | Jonathan "CJ" Hodnefield |
Xica Felix | Gregory Grant | Jacob Hehir | Stephanie Hoker | Gang Huang |
Varun Iyer | Rutwik Kharkar | Ariah Lacey | Catherine Chaihyun Lee | Grace Lindsay |
Jack Lundell | Steve McClellan | Michelle Machon | Amanda Owens | Renata Poulton- Kamakura |
Yinghui Qiu | Maimon Rose, Ph.D. | Navaneethan Santhanam | Alessandra Silva | Adam Stevenson |
Patrick Stinson | Stephanie Tetrick | Stephanie Thomas | Arjun Venkataswamy | Sylvia Xinyu Wei |
Sam Zheng | Sophie Zinberg | Austin Butler | Suha Chang |