Lab Members
Carlos Ponce, MD, PhD
hms [dot] harvard [dot] eduCarlos 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.
Graduate Students
Olivia Rose
Olivia is a fourth-year Neuroscience Ph.D. candidate in the Ponce Lab. While her primary appointment is through Washington University School of Medicine, she is thrilled to be completing her doctoral research as a member of the HMS community. Her research uses computational and behavioral paradigms to elucidate how regions downstream of visual cortex, such as ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, represent and transform highly processed visual information. Olivia received her B.S. in Psychology from Florida State University, where she fell in love with neuroscience, electrophysiology, and computational modeling. Outside of lab, she enjoys crocheting, making homemade jam and bread, mentoring young women in STEM, and hiking with her dog, Rusty.
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!
Research Technician
Mary Burkemper
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.
Katherine Mueller
Undergraduates/Postbacs
Ivan Hernandez
hms [dot] harvard [dot] edu
Jeevun Kansupada
Collaborator
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.
Alumni
