Independent Validation

Yevgenia Kozorovitskiy, PhD, is the Irving M. Klotz Professor of Neurobiology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University. She received her Bachelors and PhD in Neuroscience; Psychology from Princeton University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School as a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows with Professor Bernardo Sabatini. Her honors include the Sloan Research Fellowship, Beckman Young Investigator Award, Rita Allen Scholar, Searle Scholar, NSF CAREER, and OneMind Rising Star Awards. The Kozorovitskiy laboratory is broadly focused on mechanisms of neuroplasticity and neuromodulation, in the context of mental health and neurodevelopment. The laboratory synergizes biological discovery with optical, optoelectronic, and molecular methods development.

Alex Kwan is a Professor in the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University. He is broadly interested in the neurobiology of drugs for treating mental illnesses. His research has revealed how ketamine and psychedelics act in the brain to enhance neural plasticity. His lab is committed to open science by sharing data and code from its recent studies. Originally from Hong Kong, Dr. Kwan received a Bachelor of Applied Science in engineering physics from Simon Fraser University and a PhD in Applied Physics from Cornell University. Outside of the lab, Alex enjoys drinking a good cup of espresso and rock climbing with his kids.

Hillel Adesnik is a neuroscientist whose research focuses on sensory processing, cortical circuits, and neural computation. He investigates how ensembles of neurons in the brain’s cortex encode perception and integrate sensory information. Dr. Adesnik’s lab uses optical imaging, electrophysiology, and optogenetics to reveal how neural networks generate behavior. His research contributes to understanding cognition and the neural basis of perception.

He is a Professor of Neurobiology in the Department of Neuroscience at UC Berkeley and affiliated with the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. He mentors students in systems neuroscience and neural circuits.

Sam Wang is a professor of neuroscience at Princeton University. An alumnus of the California Institute of Technology, where he received a Bachelor of Science with honor in physics, he went on to earn a PhD in neuroscience from the Stanford University School of Medicine in 1993. He conducted postdoctoral research at Duke University Medical Center and then at Bell Labs Lucent Technologies. In the mid-1990s, he also worked on science and education policy for the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources. He joined the Princeton University faculty in 2000. He currently has affiliate appointments in the Center for Cognitive Science, the Program in Quantitative and Computational Biology, and the Center for Information Technology Policy.

Dr. Wang’s lab investigates how brains learn from sensory experience, in adulthood and development, with relevance for autism. His research has led to the establishment of patented smartphone-based methods for diagnosing autism and ADHD, and the founding of a company, BlinkLab, to bring the technology to parents and caregivers. His laboratory is also investigating the role of psilocybin to enhance long-term brain plasticity. His neuroscience research has been recognized and supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the W.M. Keck Foundation, the Rita Allen Foundation, the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation, and the McKnight Foundation. He is also the author of two popular books, “Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys But Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life” (2008), which was named Young Adult Science Book of the Year by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and “Welcome to Your Child’s Brain: How the Mind Grows from Conception to College” (2011). The two books are available in over 20 languages.