About Me

Who I am

I am a postdoctoral research fellow at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, where I investigate how the brain’s neuromodulatory systems shape network dynamics and give rise to the heterogeneous early symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. My work combines functional brainstem imaging with network science to map how deep brain nuclei influence broader neural circuits.

I completed my PhD at the Center for Neuroimaging Sciences at King’s College London, where I developed and deployed multi-modal approaches integrating molecular information from PET into BOLD fMRI analyses. This work spanned psychopharmacology, consciousness, and neuropsychiatric disorders, establishing new methods for understanding how neurochemistry shapes brain (dys)function.

When not doing neuroscience, thinking about neuroscience, or arguing about neuroscience at the pub, you can probably find me climbing, on a motorbike, or off on an adventure somewhere.

What I care about

I believe that the two most fundamental roles of science are to help us understand our place within the universe and to help those trying to survive within it. Consciousness remains one of the greatest unsolved scientific mysteries whilst disorders of the brain (spanning neuropsychiatric, neurodegenerative, and chronic pain) are amongst the greatest unmet needs within medicine. These joint motivations are what set me down the neuroscience path.

Along the way, I became increasingly convinced that (1) understanding the brain will require methods and theories that span across organizational scales and (2) grappling with the immense heterogeneity across individuals were crucial to progress.

The brain’s neuromodulatory systems offer a critical opportunity to tackle these questions. Originating from tiny, ancient, and evolutionarily conserved nuclei deep in the brainstem, these systems act as the brain’s master controllers, solving a fundamental puzzle: how does the brain’s fixed structural wiring produce such a vast diversity of brain states? They do this by releasing neuromodulatory neurotransmitters across the entire brain, dynamically reconfiguring networks to meet current demands.

Taken from a recent talk at Yale

Because of this vast influence, they naturally bridge the scales I care about (from molecular to systems-level) and their (dys)function contributes to the heterogeneous symptom profiles of disorders I study. By developing methods that capture individual differences in these systems, we can better understand the machinations of the brain and how these go wrong clinically. More importantly, by approaching these problems using tools that span from the molecular (upon which drugs act) to systems-level (which we can measure non-invasively with fMRI), I hope we can characterise inter-individual heterogenity in a manner amenable to precision interventions.

I’m always eager to discuss these ideas, explore potential collaborations, or generally chat over a pint (or coffee). Feel free to reach out!

In the Media

Every patient is different, and so are their brains
OHBM Communications

Neuroscientists gain a deeper understanding of how LSD affects molecular brain activity
PsyPost

The Keystone Mechanism Theory of Pain
Pain Research Forum Podcast