Rudy Behnia
Principal Investigator
Dr. Rudy Behnia did her undergraduate at Ecole Normal Supérieure in Paris (France). She obtained her Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology at Cambridge University (UK). She then joined the laboratory of Dr. Claude Desplan at New York University for her post-doctoral training. In 2015, Dr. Behnia was hired as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University. She is a member of the Zuckerman Mind, Brain, Behavior Institute as well as the Kavli Institute for Brain Science.
Postdocs
Sachira Denagamage
Charles H. Revson Senior Fellow
Sachira has a B.S. in Biology from the Pennsylvania State University, where he was a Millennium Scholar. He received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Yale University, where he studied peri-saccadic modulation of cortical circuits with Dr. Anirvan Nandy. Sachira is co-mentored by Gwyneth Card. He studies the circuit mechanisms underlying sensorimotor transformation and integration in Drosophila.
Amanda González-Segarra
Alan Kanzer Postdoctoral Fellow
Amanda pursued a B.S. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. She obtained a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, where she identified neural circuits that coordinate hunger and thirst in the lab of Dr. Kristin Scott. In the Behnia lab, she works on elucidating the neural circuit mechanisms of multisensory learning using connectomics, in vivo imaging and behavioral approaches. Amanda enjoys going on urban hikes with her dog, getting into a new craft project, dancing flamenco and exploring the city.
Miah Pitcher
Alan Kanzer Postdoctoral Fellow
Miah received a B.A. in Neuroscience from Princeton University. She earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of California, Berkeley, where she worked in the lab of Dr. Marla Feller studying how spontaneous activity in the developing retina shapes feature detector circuits. In the Behnia lab, she is interested in understanding how neural circuits extract and integrate diverse visual features to support navigation. As an exceptionally weak navigator herself, Miah enjoys getting lost exploring the city.
Graduate STudents
Sharon Su
Graduate Student
Sharon is interested in understanding the role spectral information plays in Drosophila navigation and its underlying computations. Sharon is co-mentored by Larry Abbott. They received a B.S. in Computational Neuroscience from UC Santa Barbara. Outside of lab, they enjoy writing music, playing the bass, and building analog synthesizers.
Ishani Ganguly
Graduate Student
Ishani graduated from Caltech with a degree in Computation and Neural Systems and is now pursuing a PhD in the Behnia and Litwin-Kumar labs. She is interested in building computational models to understand multisensory learning in the Drosophila mushroom body. When she’s not working on her research, Ishani can be found listening to new music and podcasts, catching up with friends, or exploring local restaurants, museums, and coffee shops.
Rachel estrella
Graduate Student
Rachel graduated with a B.S. in Neuroscience from Duke University. She is interested in investigating the role of color in circadian entrainment in Drosophila. Outside of lab, Rachel likes to thrift shop, try new food, and explore NYC.
Talya Inbar
Graduate Student
STAFF
Rhythm Sharma Albarron
Laboratory Manager/Senior Staff Associate I
Rhythm has a Master’s degree in Biotechnology from NYU. She worked as a Lab Manager and Research Staff Assistant at the Maniatis lab prior to joining the lab.
Valentin Dalstein
Engineer
Valentin graduated from University of Toronto and CentraleSupelec in France. He studied Biomedical Engineering at University of Toronto for a year before moving to Boston for another year for his internship, where he worked at Axoft, a start-up building Brain Computer Interfaces. At Behnia lab. Valentin will provide support to the team by creating, coding and building the tools they need to conduct their research. Outside of lab, he loves to climb, play handball. His favorite meal is risotto and he hates losing at Catan. His happy place is the mountains where he always went for summer vacation.
Ricardo Mora
Research Technician
Ricardo holds a B.S. in Neuroscience from Boston College. His research focuses on understanding multisensory inputs in the Drosophila mushroom body, with a particular emphasis on olfactory and visual processing. Currently, he is investigating the mechanisms underlying associative learning in fruit flies. Outside of the lab, Ricardo likes to go to museums, play volleyball and enjoys picking up new languages.
uNDERGRADs
CHLOE SZETO
Chloe is an undergraduate student at Columbia University planning to double major in Cognitive Science (specializing in neuroscience) and Economics. In the Behnia Lab, she is interested in studying multi-sensory learning and escape behavior in Drosophila. Outside of the lab, she enjoys fencing, watching Formula One, baking sweets, and listening to new music.
Brynn Sanner
Brynn is an undergraduate student at Columbia University majoring in Biology, on the pre-medical track. In the Behnia Lab, she is studying the relationship between light and circadian rhythms in flies. Outside of the lab, she edits for an undergraduate neuroscience journal and enjoys reading, climbing, and baking banana bread.
Terrance Guanxaing Heng
Terrance is an undergraduate in the Columbia University-Trinity College Dual BA program majoring in neuroscience and behavioral sciences. In the Behnia lab, he is interested in studying multisensory learning and connectomics. Outside the lab, he enjoys tennis, off-piste snowboarding, hiking, and drinking coffee.
Alumni
Malavika Ganesan Singh
Sarita Padukone - Neuroscience Graduate Program at UCSF
Jayita Yani Golam
Elena Nicole Hardy
Madeline Lucille Galloway
Andrew Po Fung Liu - Global Markets Associate in XVA Trading at Bank of America Securities
Álvaro Sanz-Diez
Ashika Prakash
Atsuko Adachi
Justine Biscay - Master’s student at École Polytechnique
Gonzalo Alarcon
Ashley Chung - Research Assistant, HSS (hospital for special surgery)
Gabriel Yancy - Graduate Student at NYU
Matthias Christenson - Principal Machine Learning Scientist at Mountain Biometrics and Adjunct faculty at
the University of Utah
Daphné Guerin - Graduate Master of Statistical Scienceat Oxford University
David Gerard - Graduate Student at UCL and Cambridge University
Jacob Portes - Machine Learning Research scientist at Databricks
Seyed Navid Mousavi - Graduate Student Program in Neuroscience Harvard University
Jessica Kohn – Program Officer at Helmsey Charitable Trust
Sarah Heath – Associate Director - R&D Strategy - Bristol Myer Squibbs
Nick Manfred – Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology
Irene Margarit – M.S. Student at Columbia University
Maia Weisenhaus - Lab Technician at the MCA Center for Infectious Diseases and Virology at USC
Shravan Karthik – Embedded Systems Engineer – Apple
Melba Colon – Laboratory Manager – Salzman Lab
Jeremy Chang – Graduate student Princeton Neuroscience Institute Ph.D. Program
Jackson Welles
Tommy Lam – Graduate student at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Elie Oriol – Graduate student at Laboratoire de Physique de l’Ecole normale supérieure
Jean Fatien
Michael Sander - Graduate student at ENS Paris
Sami Mollard - Graduate student at Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience