Margaret is a PhD candidate in the Neurobiology & Behavior program. She holds a first-class honours BSc degree in Biomedical Sciences (Control Systems track) from University College London. During her undergraduate studies, she joined Prof Michael Hausser's lab to probe the internal computations underlying sensorimotor integration in the mouse cerebellum. For her undergraduate thesis work, she joined the lab of Nobel Laureate Prof John O'Keefe to study the sensory basis of conspecific recognition in rats. She then spent a summer working at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus, where she analyzed EM data to uncover the neural circuits underlying associative learning in the Drosophila brain. Armed with these diverse research experiences, Margaret is now interested in studying the algorithmic rules that support higher cognitive functions in primates, such as complex object discrimination. While n the El-Shamayleh lab (2021–2022), Margaret was involved in performing visual neuroscience experiments and was working to combine optogenetics and electrophysiology to study cortical circuits in primates. Margaret joined the lab in August 2021.
Next position: PhD Student in the Neurobiology & Behavior program at Columbia University.