Tara Neddersen (Tahoura Nedaee) is currently pursuing both her B.S. in Biology with a concentration in Neuroscience and her M.S. in biology at Stanford University. In her previous research, she focused on exploring the neural mechanisms behind memory processes. She was named Woman Inventor of the Year in 2019 for her innovative contributions to Neurology. Currently, she is working with Dr. Florian Donneger in the Soltesz Lab, focusing on the role of endocannabinoid signaling in spatial navigation.

Ying and Jayashri are currently rotating in our lab during her studies.

We are excited for you to see you one step closer to your MD/PhD. Cheers!

Annie completed her B.S. in Neuroscience at the University of Michigan and her Ph.D. in Neuroscience with Dr. Matthew Rowan at Emory University. During her Ph.D., she explored early mechanisms of Alzheimer’s Disease, focusing on the vulnerability of inhibitory interneurons in the Lateral Entorhinal Cortex. She recently joined the Soltesz Lab where she will continue to work between the Entorhinal Cortex and Hippocampus, focusing on Dentate Spikes. 

Eliza and Sky are currently rotating in our lab during her studies.

SCE Conference in honor of Ivan Soltesz | Chaminade Resort | Santa Cruz | January 19-21 | 2024 | Website

In 2024, Quynh Ann became a faculty member and started her own lab in the department of Pharmacology and Vanderbilt Brain Institute, Vanderbilt University, Nashville. QA’s lab aims to bridge our understanding of neural function and dysfunction at the level of molecules, cells, circuits, and behavior. A central focus of the lab is to understand mechanisms of hyperexcitability in the brain. Aberrant firing of neurons underlies many neurological disorders such as epilepsy and a greater understanding of how this dysfunction arises can pave the way for the identification of novel targets for therapeutic intervention. We utilize techniques such as slice electrophysiology, in vivo silicon probe recording, 2-photon imaging, closed-loop optogenetics, EEG recording, and computational modeling in mice for our investigations. The lab has an interdisciplinary group of collaborators, including biochemists and bioengineers who develop tools to aid our basic science investigations as well as clinicians who help translate our basic insights from mouse to humans.

Another Soltesz Lab reunion at AES in the books.

In 2023, Jordan became a faculty member and started his own lab in Neurology at Harvard Medical School and the Rosamund Stone Zander Translational Neuroscience Center and F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center at Boston Children’s Hospital. His lab aims to understand how basic mechanisms that support healthy brain functions become hijacked in epilepsy to drive pathophysiology.  His lab’s most recent focus is unravelling how local circuit and large-scale network mechanisms, which normally control memory processes, become substrates for hypersynchronous, pathological activity in epilepsy. To translate their findings, his group develops non-invasive ultrasound approaches to re-tune neural circuits with high spatial and cell type-specific precision.