Dan Meliza

Dan received his BA in 1999 from Lewis and Clark College and his PhD in 2005 from UC Berkeley where he was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Working in the lab of Yang Dan, he demonstrated that spike-timing-dependent plasticity could modify visual receptive fields in young rats. He worked with Dan Margoliash at the University of Chicago as a Ruth L Kirschstein Postdoctoral Fellow. In 2014, he joined the faculty at the University of Virginia and is currently an Associate Professor.

Christof Fehrman

Christof is a PhD student from the Quantitative area of the Psychology Department who is working on computational models of auditory responses.

Yao Lu

Yao is a PhD student in Systems and Behavioral Neuroscience. She is investigating the mechanisms of experience-dependent intrinsic plasticity in the songbird auditory system and how it affects population dynamics during development.

Samantha Moseley

Sam is a PhD student in Systems and Behavioral Neuroscience. Her research centers on how the auditory system learns to hear vocalizations in complex acoustic conditions.

Francesca Sciaccotta

Francesca is a PhD student in Systems and Behavioral Neuroscience. She is working with the Meliza and Erisir labs to investigate the subcellular distribution of Kv1.1 using electron microscopy.

Taylor Byron

Taylor is a PhD student in Systems and Behavioral Neuroscience and an Interdisciplinary Fellow in the Quantitative Neurobiology of Behavior program. She is investigating the role of a dyslexia-related gene, KIAA0319, in the development of the songbird auditory system.

Ahmad Elsayed

Ahmad is a PhD student in Systems and Behavioral Neuroscience and an Interdisciplinary Fellow in the Quantitative Neurobiology of Behavior program. He is working in the Cang and Meliza labs to investigate the mechansisms of coarse-to-fine processing in the rodent visual system.

Bao Le

Bao is a first-year PhD student in Systems and Behavioral Neuroscience. He plans to work on auditory restoration and population dynamics.

Benjamin Bellanger

Hannah Fugate

Tessa Berman

Jenna Stutzman

Leah Kiely 2019-2022 (Cognitive Science)

Leah used immunohistochemistry and signal processing tools to examine how the statistics of auditory experience affect Kv1.1 expression in the developing zebra finch brain. She is currently working at Vanda Pharmaceuticals in a clinical position.

Jonah Weissman 2021-2022 (Computer Science)

Aysegul Gungor 2020-2021

Aysegul received her BS degree in Biochemistry and her Ph.D. degree in Neuroscience in 2018 from Pamukkale University, Turkey. During her time in the lab as a postdoc, she developed AAV-based genetic tools for testing the role of Kv1.1 in auditory learning. She is doing a second postdoc with Kasia Bieszczad at Rutgers.

Margot Bjoring 2015-2021 (PhD)

Margot received her PhD in Systems and Behavioral Neuroscience from the Psychology Department. While at UVA, Margot was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, a Jefferson Scholars Foundation Fellow, and a UVA Presidential Data Science Fellow. Her dissertation investigated the neural basis of auditory restoration in the avian auditory cortex. She is now a Data Scientist with UVA Health.

Katherine Nimchuk 2020-2021 (Research Technician)

Katherine received her BS in Neuroscience from Furman University. She joined the lab in June 2020 and is now working with Jung-Bum Shin as PhD student in the UVA neuroscience graduate program.

Kayla Hess 2018-2021 (Biology)

Kayla worked on a number of projects in the lab, most recently looking at how Kv1.1 expression changes in the zebra finch auditory cortex during the sensory critical period for song learning. She received an MHS in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology from Johns Hopkins and is currently an ORISE Research Fellow with the CDC Infectious Disease Pathology branch.

Fatima Ahsan 2017-2021 (Neuroscience)

Fatima completed a Distinguished Majors Project that investigated the microcircuitry of the avian auditory cortex. She received a Harrison Undergraduate Research award in 2020.

Andrew Chen 2013-2018 (PhD)

Andrew received his PhD from the Neuroscience Graduate Program. His work in the lab focused on using slice electrophysiology and anatomical methods to understand the underlying circuitry of the caudal mesopallium and how intrinsic dynamics are affected by experience. Andrew is currently a Health Program Specialist at NIH-NINDS.

Crystal Gong 2015-2018 (Neuroscience and Computer Science)

Crystal worked in the Meliza lab since her first summer at UVA. She received a Harrison Undergraduate Research Award to examine the role of NMDA-receptor-dependent plasticity in auditory category learning, and then worked on a project to determine how auditory experience affects potassium channel expression. In her free time, Crystal enjoys climbing rock walls and watching cooking shows, but not at the same time.

Hasan Khan 2016-2018 (Cognitive Science and Computer Science)

Hasan worked on several computational projects in the Meliza lab, with a focus on building computational neuron models and estimating intrinsic neuronal parameters. He also enjoys traveling and landscape photography. (website)

Tyler Robbins 2014-2017 (BA, Cognitive Science)

Tyler led the lab's development of statistical methods for simultaneously estimating receptive fields and intrinsic dynamics from extracellular neural recordings. After completing his honors undergraduate research, he worked on this project for a year as a technician. Tyler received a law degree from Stanford University in 2021.

Ayush Sagar 2015-2016 (ME)

Ayush obtained a M. Eng. in Computer Engineering from the School of Engineering and Applied Science. He graduated in Electrical Electronics Engineering at GGS IP University, India in 2013. Prior to joining UVA, he was a Research Associate at L V Prasad Eye Institute, India where he developed portable electroretinography and stereopsis screening devices. He led the software and hardware reengineering effort for the starboard operant conditioning system prototype.

Chelsea Haakenson 2014-2016 (BA, Psychology)

Chelsea worked as a research technician and spearheaded several projects on the anatomy of the zebra finch auditory system. She left the lab to receive her PhD at the University of Maryland and is now a Health Program Specialist with NIH-NIA.

J.P. Riggle 2015-2016 (BA, Neuroscience)

Postdoc, Knight Lab, UCSF

PhD student, Prendergast Lab, University of Chicago

Adrienne Doebrich 2015-2016 (BA, Cognitive Science)

MD student, University of Virginia

Maggie O'Toole 2014-2016 (BA, Computer Science)