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Lab Members

Carlos Ramon Ponce

Carlos Ponce, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor
carlosathms [dot] harvard [dot] edu

Carlos is interested in how different brain regions interact to solve motion processing and visual object recognition, asking this question via a combination of electrophysiology, reversible deactivation and microstimulation techniques as well as computational modeling. He received his M.D-Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School and his Bachelor of Science from the University of Utah. He is originally from Chihuahua, Mexico.

Postdoctoral Fellows

Giordano Ramos

Luis Giordano Ramos Traslosheros Lopez

Postdoctoral research fellow

Graduate Students

Olivia Rose

Olivia Rose

Olivia Rose is a fifth-year doctoral student in the Ponce Lab, through which her graduate training spans both Washington University School of Medicine (Ph.D. Candidate in Neuroscience) and Harvard Medical School (Visiting Research Fellow).  Grounded by neuroanatomy, Olivia's research concentrates on neurons in regions traditionally neglected in vision research, such as ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and basolateral amygdala.  She uses novel computational and behavioral paradigms to identify how neurons in these areas encode visual information, with a long-term goal of elucidating a more complete understanding of the neural systems underlying core object recognition.  Olivia received her B.S. in Psychology from Florida State University, where she fell in love with sensory neuroscience, electrophysiology, and computational modeling.  Outside of lab, she spends her free time crocheting, making homemade jam and bread, mentoring young women in STEM, and hiking with her dog, Rusty.

Research Technician

Elizabeth Cleaveland

Elizabeth Cleaveland

Research technician
Alireza A. Dehaqani

Alireza Dehaqani

Associate in Neurobiology
Nya Weems

Nya Weems

Research technician

Collaborators

Till Hartmann

Till Hartmann

Collaborator
Antonio Montanaro

Antonio Montanaro

Visiting graduate student
Binxu Wang

Binxu Wang

I'm Binxu Wang, a graduate student in the Neuroscience program (at Washington University). I got my undergrad training in theoretical physics at Yuanpei College in Peking University, and I was working with computational neuroscientist Louis Tao. Deeply enchanted by the beauty and power of geometry in Theoretical Physics, I believe it will play an important role in understanding the neural code. Currently, I'm trying to leveraging tools from geometry, optimization, and machine learning to study the visual brain. I'm interested in understanding the visual representations in the monkey brain, neural networks, and generative models. I believe that the union of theory, computation, and experiments will advance our understanding of the brain and mind. 

When not in lab, I do some fun coding projects,  read novels, and make 3d art!

https://animadversio.github.io/academic_notes/

Victoria Zhang

Victoria Zhang

Victoria is a Ph.D candidate student in Computer Science and she is dedicated to the study of human and machine intelligence and vision. Her research sets out to identify brain-wide visual organizing principles and determine if these principles are shared by learning-based models of the ventral stream (convolutional neural networks, CNNs). Victoria received her B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science and B.S. in Electrical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. When not in the lab, she enjoys water-color painting, hiking and teaching her cockatiel Ashe singing and cool tricks.


https://zhanqizhang66.github.io

Alumni

Alessandro Armitano

Alessandro Armitano

Master's student
Mary Burkemper

Mary Burkemper

Research technician

Mary graduated with her B.S. in Animal Science from the University of Missouri, Columbia in 2017 where her studies focused on using swine models from human research. In 2019, she graduated with her M.S. in Animal Science from The Ohio State University where her research focused on animal behavior, welfare, and health; specifically, finding practical pain management options for livestock. Soon after graduation, she joined the Ponce lab where they first started at Washington University in St. Louis. She is excited to continue working with the Ponce lab as they transition to Harvard Univerity. Mary has a passion for research, a fondness for all creatures, and a love for the outdoors. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, playing sports, gardening, and spending time with her friends and family.

Ivan Hernandez

Ivan Hernandez

Intern
Ivan_Hernandezathms [dot] harvard [dot] edu
James K. Johnson

James Johnson

Postdoctoral fellow
Jeevun Kansupada

Jeevun Kansupada

Undergraduate
Chandana Kuntala

Chandana Kuntala

Undergraduate intern
Andre Longon

Andre Longon

Visiting master's student

I would like to understand how neural networks compute and represent visual information.  I am more familiar with artificial neural networks in computer vision, but collaboration with the Ponce Lab will teach me the biology of vision.  I am excited to make connections between these two perspectives and help support their burgeoning symbiotic relationship.  My background is in computer science with a B.S. from the University of Louisiana.  I am pursuing a M.S. in computer science at Louisiana State University.

 

Github:  https://github.com/cest-andre

Katherine Mueller

Katherine Mueller

Research technician
Sabrina Pires

Sabrina Pires

Undergraduate researcher
Sam Price

Sam Price

Collaborator
sampricestudioatgmail [dot] com

Sam graduated from Cornell University with a BFA and a Minor in Architecture in May 2021. He is a multimedia artist exploring perception's role in the creative process and in conveying and understanding the intrapersonal experience. Sam conceptualizes future possibilities and questions regarding direct expression of thought. Inspired by the visual language of pattern recognition, he references pareidolia, surreal automatism, dreams, and artificial neural networks in his practice.

website

link to thesis video, based on a collaboration with the lab

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