Neurosciences Postdoctoral Scholars, Interdisciplinary Track (Alumni)

Jiwon Yeon is a postdoctoral fellow advised by Dr. Justin Gardner at Stanford University in Psychology. Jiwon earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2021 (advised by Dr. Dobromir Rahnev) and did her Master's and Bachelor’s degree in Human Factors Engineering at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea in 2016 and 2014 (advised by Dr. Sung-Phil Kim). During her Ph.D., Jiwon’s main research interest was in perceptual decision-making in humans.

Amy Nippert is a neuroscientist working to develop new therapeutics for chronic pain. She is working as a postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Vivianne Tawfik to determine glial contributions to chronic pain. She is interested in the role of astrocytes, often thought of as supporting cells, in the initiation and persistence of chronic pain. Amy received a BA in English and a BS in Neuroscience at the University of Arizona. Before joining Dr. Tawfik’s lab, Amy completed her PhD in the lab of Dr.

As a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Professor E.J. Chichilnisky and the Stanford Artificial Retina collaboration, Claire Baum aims to bridge fundamental visual neuroscience with novel device fabrication to develop the first high resolution retinal prosthesis to treat blindness in patients affected by photoreceptor diseases. A physicist by trade, Claire received her received her B.S. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2017 and Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago in 2022.

Ernie Hwaun works as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Neurosurgery in the School of Medicine under the supervision of Prof. Ivan Soltesz. Ernie received his Bachelor of Science in Physiology & Neuroscience and Master of Science in Biology from the University of California, San Diego. He then moved to the University of Texas at Austin to pursue PhD in Neuroscience. In his doctoral studies, Ernie investigated how rodents acquire memory of new locations during awake behaviors and subsequent sleep.

Renzhi Yang is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences under the supervision of Prof. Nirao Shah. His research aims to understand the neuronal and genetic mechanisms regulating male reproductive behaviors. Renzhi received B.S. degree in Molecular and Cell Biology from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2014. Renzhi then came to Stanford to pursue his Ph.D. in the Department of Biology with Prof. Jun Ding, where he uncovered dynorphin as a novel mediator of the striatal plasticity and cognitive flexibility.

David Zoltowski is a computational neuroscientist who is broadly interested in statistical methods for analyzing neural data and probabilistic machine learning. As a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford, he is developing statistical models of nonlinear neural dynamics and working on brain-computer interface algorithms. David received a B.S. in electrical engineering from Michigan State University and an M.Phil in engineering at the University of Cambridge, where he was advised by Professor Máté Lengyel and supported by a Churchill Scholarship. David then obtained a Ph.D.

Claire Bedbrook is a bioengineer and neuroscientist working to extend lifespan by modulating the brain. Claire was trained as a chemical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. She completed her Ph.D. in Bioengineering at the California Institute of Technology with Professor Frances Arnold and Professor Viviana Gradinaru, where she engineered molecular tools for controlling and recording the brain using machine-learning based protein engineering.

Isaac Kauvar is neuroscientist and engineer interested in how animals construct and deploy models of the world. As a postdoctoral fellow with Professor Nick Haber, he is interested in advancing curiosity-driven algorithms to investigate how animals and robots explore.