Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Meet The Team
Principal Investigator
Kiyohito (Kyo) Iigaya
Kyo Iigaya is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University. He is also affiliated with Neurobiology and Behavior Program, Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, and Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute.
Kyo received his Ph.D. from the Physics Department and the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience at Columbia (thesis advisor: Stefano Fusi). Kyo was a postdoc at University College London (the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit and the Max Planck Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing. advisor: Peter Dayan, Ray Dolan) and Caltech (advisor: John O'Doherty).
Kyo likes to eat, travel, and eat.
Research Center Coordinator
Bahar Selimbeyoglu
Bahar is a Research Center Coordinator at the C3N. Bahar received her Ph.D. in Biotechnology at Yeditepe University in Turkey. She has also worked at CNRS, Paris-Saclay University, and as a postdoctoral researcher in the Human Brain Project at the Institut de Neurosciences des Systèmes, Faculté de Médecine, France.
Bahar's research focuses on unique structural and functional variability, including atrophies, dysconnectivity, adaptations in network and hemispheric asymmetries. She is especially interested in distinguishing between these patterns in healthy aging and neurodegenerative disorders and exploring the causality between observations in resting state.
Bahar likes kibbeh.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Pradyumna Sepúlveda
Prady is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Psychiatry. He received a Biotech Engineering degree and M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Pontificia Universidad Catolica in Chile and later an M.Sc. in Neuroscience from King's College London. He completed his Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London under the supervision of Benedetto De Martino.
His research interest is how healthy, and clinical populations make choices that flexibly adapt to countless goals and contexts.
Prady likes to explore the city by cycling, running, walking, or imagining it.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Matt Schafer
Matthew is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychiatry, in the labs of Kyo Iigaya and Guillermo Horga.
He received his PhD in Neuroscience at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine under the supervision of Dr. Daniela Schiller.
His research is on abstraction and memory, in social interaction and in delusions.
In his personal life, Matthew likes to have fun and win at things.
Ph.D. Student
Adithya Gungi
Adithya is a Ph.D. student in the Physics department and has an Integrated M.Sc in Physics from IIT Bombay in Mumbai, India, and an MA in Physics from Stony Brook University.
They received the SfN Trainee Professional Development Award in 2023.
Adithya loves to read, and is on a quest to find the best dollar pizza place in NYC as a connoisseur of street food.
Ph.D. Student
Ines Aitsahalia
Ines is a PhD student in the Neurobiology and Behavior Program at Columbia University in the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience. Ines is supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowships Program (GRFP).
She is interested in computational models of reward-based learning, and incorporating neurodiversity and disability justice into psychiatric research.
She received her BA from Princeton University, working with Professor Yael Niv.
In her spare time, she loves to paint, learn about dinosaurs, and write jokes.
Research Volunteer
Anjum Ahmed
Anjum graduated from Columbia University with a M.A. in developmental psychology. She wants to go on to receive a PhD in clinical psychology. She wants to do more research in psychology before becoming a therapist.
In her free time she likes to paint, read, go on long walks, or spend time with her family and pets.
Undergraduate Student
Stella Dong
Stella is a senior at Barnard College majoring in cognitive science. She is interested in neural and computational process underlying reinforcement learning and decision making.
In her free time, she enjoys to explore the city by feet, ranking all the restaurants and cafes she's been to, and going thrift shopping with friends. She loves to express through creative endeavors such as writing and dancing.
Undergraduate Student
Anish Reddy Leekkala
Anish is a freshman planning to major in computer science and minor in psychology at Colombia Engineering. He is interested in the intersection of machine learning and neuroscience in an applied context.
In his free time, he likes to play table tennis and go on long walks exploring New York City.
Previous members
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Victoria Fisher
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Eleanor Furness
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Jenny Ye
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Albert Jan
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Krishan Kumar (now NB&B Ph.D. student at Columbia)
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Yasmin Farhan
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Manuel Paez
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Anusha Phadnis (now in Laura Berner's lab at Mt. Sinai)
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Shuanghua Wei
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Allen Qu (now in Patel lab)
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Kim Dang