Student Researchers

Xenia Tzavara is a BSc Human Genetics Student at University College London. She is currently doing research at the Jepson Lab, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology.

Hannah researches the relationship between cannabis use patterns, use motives, and psychosis. She began this work during her MSc at King’s College London as part of the Cannabis&Me study, the UK’s largest investigation into cannabis use and mental health. Her passion for the field led her to continue analysing data beyond her MSc, contributing to a paper currently under submission for peer review. In September, she will begin her PhD at the University of Bath, focusing on standard THC units to define risk thresholds for psychosis. Her research aims to inform safer cannabis use guidelines and public health policies, addressing the urgent need for evidence-based regulation as cannabis legalisation expands globally.

Chiara Del Galdo is a medical student at the University of Leeds, currently studying Anatomy at King’s College London. Passionate about ENT, Neuroscience, and Neurosurgery, she is working on a dissertation exploring whether hearing loss can be reversed in Otoferlin mutant mice. Conducted at the Steel Laboratory, her research demonstrates that genetic approaches can restore hearing in these models, paving the way for potential gene therapies to treat DFNB9-related hearing loss in humans.

I started researching consciousness through a more philosophical lens in 2021, going on to present at the Science of Consciousness Conference at the University of Arizona in 2024, and now at KCL's conference I am broadening my horizons and focusing more on the scientific aspect of consciousness studies.

Khushali is a Neuroscience and Psychology student at KCL currently completing a computational neuroscience placement. My research applies dynamic functional connectivity analysis to study how drugs influence brain dynamics in real time. I’m passionate about using computational approaches to better understand brain function and improve healthcare outcomes.

With interests in medtech, international healthcare management, faith-based medical practice and Global health policy, I carried out research into a heavily under-researched area of study within the world of Neuroimaging and Neurotechnological advances, and the interplay between faith and Neuroscience. I hope you'll find my research to be intriguing, and look forward to connecting, learning and interacting with you at the Trivergence 2025 conference.

Sara is a current masters student at KCL studying Neuroscience. She holds an undergraduate degree in Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience from the University of Westminster. Her research interests include stroke and neurodegenerative diseases. Her undergraduate dissertation explored stroke education in young adults and her masters thesis will delve into nano-engineered drug encapsulation for neuro-protection against ischaemic brain damage.

Büşra Mutlu İpek is a PhD student in the Department of Neuroimaging at King's College London. Her research focuses on enhancing tractography algorithms by leveraging anatomical constraints to reduce the complexity of connectomics. Living in London for the past three years, Büşra is married and has a three-year-old son.

Janek’s BSc in Neuroscience at KCL sparked his interest in everything neuro-related. Since then, he has enjoyed teaching neuroanatomy and sharing his passion for neuroscience with other students. During his degree, he was involved in the epilepsy research team at the UCL National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery, focusing on functional neurosurgery research. Currently, he is studying Medicine at St. George’s University of London with an interest in pursuing neurosurgery.

Sarivin Vanan is a 4th year PhD candidate at Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is supervised by Professor Lim Kah Leong (LKCMedicine), and co-supervised by Associate Professor Sunny Wong (LKCMedicine) and Associate Professor Zeng Li (National Neuroscience Institute). His research interest lies in unravelling the role of environmental factors on the gut-brain axis in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s Disease.

Matas Vitkauskas is a Research Officer at the Genome Institute of Singapore, specializing in single-cell and spatial transcriptomics to study psychiatric disorders using brain organoids. He holds a Life Sciences degree from Yale-NUS College, where he conducted research on nootropics in Drosophila. Matas has contributed to neuroscience outreach through the Integrative Neuroscience Association and has experience in wet-lab and computational biology.

 Tanisha Goel is a PhD candidate in Neurobiology at the National University of Singapore, specializing in molecular biology and behavioral neuroscience. With a background in biochemistry (B.Sc., King’s College London) and drug discovery (M.Sc., UCL), she has gained research experience at Yale-NUS College and A*STAR, focusing on neuroscience and biomedical sciences.

Max Benabou is a senior at Stanford University studying biomedical computation and Spanish. His research uses computational modeling to better understand the interaction of sequence selectivity and learning-induced morphology changes in dendrites.

Heidy Munoz is a junior at Stanford University studying biology. Her research uses human iPSCs to explore the role of oligodendroglia in 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome.

Hannah Pescaru is a junior at Stanford University majoring in biochemistry. She is currently working on a mouse model of choroid plexus carcinoma, focusing on tumor metabolic changes in order to better identify possible future screening tools and treatments.

Amrita Malhotra is a junior at Stanford University studying Symbolic Systems (neuroscience) and Music. Her research looks at the intersection between glial cells, circadian rhythm, and Alzheimer’s disease.

 Ishi Cordero is a fourth-year Psychology undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, currently working as a researcher at the Center of Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). His research involves examining the neurobiological underpinnings of various aspects of psychological functioning through the use of electroencephalography (EEG). Specifically, he investigates the balance of cortical inhibition and excitability between patients with Alzheimer’s Disease and healthy controls for the development of novel biomarkers and treatment interventions.

Brenden completed his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Science at York University. His research thesis focused on the structural and functional synaptic physiology of aberrant synaptic pruning and excitatory synapse suppression in a model of autism spectrum disorder. Brenden recently defended his MSc thesis at the University of Toronto through the Krembil Brain Institute (Toronto Western Hospital). Here, he examined the effects of acute lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) administration on neural oscillatory rhythms in preclinical models. Brenden will soon begin his doctoral studies (PhD) at Krembil. Brenden has previously worked at (and still actively collaborates with) North Toronto Neurology (formerly Neurology Centre of Toronto), where he leads the clinical research team focused on assessing the real-world efficacy of medical cannabis in pediatric and adult drug-resistant epilepsy.

I am currently a sophomore majoring in Neuroscience at Hopkins, and I intend on pursuing a PhD in neuroscience to eventually conduct my own research, specifically about neurodegenerative diseases. My current work is centered around vascular neurology, neuro-ophthalmology, and neuro-addiction. I utilize various techniques ranging from optogenetics to computational modeling to understand the mechanisms behind different diseases. 

I am a junior studying Neuroscience and Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University going on to finish my second year of research in this lab. I find behavioral translational research exciting, especially looking at the underlying mechanisms these behaviors are a result of.  I look forward to understanding these neural circuits better in hope of finding meaningful connections to humans. 

Himaani is a recent neuroscience graduate with a keen interest in mental health research and behaviour. The basis of her research was hypothesizing microglial dysfunction to drive behavioural deficits in C3AR knockout mice due to the receptor’s strong glial expression. Due to their structural functional correlation, they used microglial phenomics as a proxy to assess their impaired function. Given the limitations of existing low-sensitivity or low-throughput methods that may not be able to effectively detect subtle microglial changes associated with mood disorder models where the region of interest is not known, we optimized a BaBB-based tissue clearing protocol with confocal imaging to enhance detection. LPS was used to design a positive control experiment, but prior to that, WT brains were used to optimize methodology. While time constraints prevented completing the LPS experiment, our protocol proved effective for soma-counting and ROI-based analysis, with our AI model successfully identifying regional microglial differences in solidity. Though, further validation is needed before