Ilana Zucker-Scharff

Ilana got her BA in Neuroscience & Behavior from Barnard College where she was first introduced to neuroscience research in the lab of Dr. Stephen Rayport while studying therapeutic targets of schizophrenia. For her undergraduate thesis work she followed a newfound passion for neuroethology all the way to South Africa alongside Dr. Steffen Foerster to research stress and social behavior in chacma baboons. After graduating, she pursued a curiosity for the underlying molecular mechanisms of the brain to the lab of Dr. Robert Darnell where she investigated the regulation of neuron-specific RNA binding proteins as they relate to human disease. Ilana joined the Neuroscience Graduate Program at Stanford with every intention to continue studying behavior in the brain of mammals but fell head over heels for drosophila neurobiology and joined the lab of Dr. Thomas Clandinin. She is interested in the evolution of the fly visual system and the role it plays in decision making, particularly in the context of social behavior. Her work combines molecular, behavioral and computational methods to elucidate the neural systems that underly visual perception of the collective.