Welcome to a glimpse of life beyond the data! Here, you’ll find updates from our lab members, snapshots from events, and moments that capture the spirit of curiosity, collaboration, and connection that drives our work.
🎓 Congratulations to Gwen on Her Successful Viva!
We’re delighted to share that Gwen successfully defended her viva in Oxford! This marks a major milestone in her academic journey and a well-deserved achievement. Congratulations, Gwen, we’re incredibly proud and can’t wait to see what’s next!
01/23/2026
🎉 Congratulations to Sydney on Her Swebilius Foundation Grant!
We’re extremely proud of Sydney, who has been awarded a Swebilius Foundation Grant through the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at Yale School of Medicine. With this support, she will spend the coming year applying novel methods to study epilepsy pathology with MEG and intracranial EEG data recorded from epilepsy patients. This work was made possible through the support of Kia, along with Imran Quraishi and Hittan Zaveri from Yale Neurology. We can’t wait to see where this project leads!
01/23/2026
🌟 Marsel Mesulam visits Yale
Our lab had the great honor of hosting Marsel Mesulam as part of the Wu Tsai Institute’s Inspiring Speaker Series. Marsel delivered a captivating talk on frontoparietal disorders, language, and cognition, sparking thoughtful discussion across the community. A long-standing mentor and collaborator of Kia, Marsel has been an enduring source of inspiration for the B&C Lab over the years. Having him join us at Yale made this visit especially meaningful.
01/08/2026
✨ Looking Back at 2025: A Big Year for the B&C Lab
As we settle into the new year, we wanted to pause for a moment to look back on what was a big and rewarding 2025 for the B&C Lab.
We’re incredibly proud of Jemma and Gwen for completing their DPhil, a major milestone and a testament to their hard work and dedication. We also celebrated several exciting next steps for B&C members: Diana began her PhD in Oxford, Jamal started a faculty position at UC Santa Cruz, Dani moved on to a postdoc at LMU Munich, and Pranava took up a research assistant position at UBC in Canada.
In between all these transitions, parts of the B&C family reunited in Oxford for a workshop, an opportunity to reflect on where we’ve been, where we’re headed, and to spark new ideas for collaboration.
The B&C family also grew this year. We were delighted to welcome Melinda, Sydney, and Paula to the team, along with undergraduate researchers Nathan, Genevieve, and Emma. Over the summer, Theo joined us as a high school intern, bringing fresh curiosity and energy to the lab.
On the research front, 2025 was a productive year, with 18 papers published, made possible by the collective effort and collaboration of the entire team. As we look ahead to 2026, we’re grateful for what we’ve built together and excited about what’s still to come. Here’s to another great year of science, teamwork, and discovery.
01/02/2026
🎄 The Brain & Minds Christmas Party
The Brain & Minds Christmas party delivered everything a lab celebration should: plenty of presents, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas is You”, and a generously sized buffet. Between good food, funny gifts, and excellent company, it was the perfect reminder that while we take science seriously, we’re also very good at celebrating together.
12/12/2025
🧠 BrainWorks Lights Up the New Haven Night Market
Paula represented the lab and BrainWorks at this year’s New Haven Night Market. The BrainWorks booth aimed to make brain science accessible (and irresistible) to everyone, complete with interactive devices, hands-on demos, and plenty of brainy merch and stickers. Visitors were very curious and maybe even a little wired from all the (neural) excitement. Who knew synapses could steal the spotlight at a night market?
10/16/2025
🧑🎓 Lab Learning: OSL Workshop
Friends of the lab from Oxford, Mark Woolrich, Mats Van Es, and Rob Seymour, visited Yale to share their cutting-edge MEG methods. We were thrilled to learn how to use Hidden Markov Models (HMM) to reveal brain state cycles and uncover spectral trends with GLMs!
09/29/2025
🏛️ Sydney is elected as a WTI SPPC fellow
Sydney recently joined the leadership of the Wu Tsai Institute Student Postbac & Postdoc Committee (SPPC). She is looking forward to leading skill building events for scientists looking to communicate their work to the public in an increasingly divided world.
09/28/2025
☔ Melinda Visits the Rademaker Lab in Frankfurt
Melinda braved the cold and rainy Frankfurt weather to visit the Rademaker Lab at the Ernst Strüngmann Institute. Luckily, the welcome inside was much warmer: the group was wonderfully engaged and made her feel right at home. During her visit, Melinda presented both some of her ongoing projects and highlights from her PhD work, proving that while the weather may have been gloomy, the science was anything but.
09/08/2025
We recently said goodbye to two of our amazing students, Pranava and Diana. Pranava is heading off to Canada for his next chapter, while Diana has moved to Oxford, where she’ll be starting her PhD with Sage and staying connected as part of the B&C family. We’ll miss their energy in the lab, but we’re excited to see their journeys unfold (and we fully expect postcards from the beautiful Oxford and Vancouver).
09/08/2025
🌟 Rising Star Intern
Theo Kertesz, a student from Scarsdale High School in New York, completed a month-long internship in the B&C lab this summer. Theo is fascinated by brain-computer interfaces and how they can be used to improve attention, focus, and learning.
In addition to assisting Pranava and other labbies with their experiments, Theo was inspired by his conversations with Sydney to write a public-facing article about her PhD research on aperiodic EEG activity and its role in understanding depression treatment.
07/28/2025
🫶 Our Second Heartfelt Farewell, This Time, Jamal
After a whirlwind year in our lab, Jamal is off to sunny UC Santa Cruz to start his new adventure as an assistant professor. We sent him off in style: with plenty of pizza to go around, and a heartfelt violin performance by William in his honor. Good luck, Jamal, may your experiments be reproducible and your office have an ocean view! You will be missed!
07/18/2025
🍜 Kung Fu Farewell: Dani’s Next Chapter Begins
Since 2018, Dani has been one of the core pillars of our lab, bringing dedication, and a flair for making things happen. Now she’s off to join Melissa Vo’s lab at LMU Munich for her next postdoc adventure. We celebrated Dani’s departure with delicious Asian cuisine at the Kung Fu Kitchen. Thanks to Dani’s amazing popcorn maker, her legacy will live on in the B&C Lab forever. We’ll miss her terribly, but she’ll always remain part of the B&C family!
06/27/2025
🔗 B&C Family Reunion in Oxford
Parts of the B&C family gathered in Oxford for a three-day workshop, “Transitions in Science & Sparking Joint Ideas.” We reflected on our journey so far and looked ahead to future directions, discussing the core values that define our lab culture. We explored exciting new topics for collaboration and shared individual goals. It was a thoughtful and energizing reunion complete with some Yorkshire tea and the unforgettable memory of punting.
06/07/2025
🌴 B&C Lab at VSS 2025
This year, the B&C Lab made waves at the Vision Science Society meeting on sunny St. Pete’s Beach, Florida. Kia dazzled the crowd with a standout talk, while Irene impressed with her excellent presentation. The rest of the team rocked the poster sessions, sparking lively discussions and plenty of brainpower. It was a stimulating conference packed with top-notch science, and maybe a little sand between the toes. We’re already counting down to next year’s VSS!
05/22/2025
🧠B&C Lab at CNS 2025 & Freek’s visit
The B&C family reunited in Boston for the Cognitive Neuroscience Society’s annual meeting, where Freek joined Kia, Dani, Irene, and Melinda for three packed days of science. Freek came over from Amsterdam, stopping in New Haven for two days before the conference to give a talk about his current work and catch up with the lab. At CNS, Dani, Irene, and Melinda presented their posters, sharing new findings and sparking discussions with the crowd. A busy and productive meeting, fueled by great science and good company.
04/01/2025
🏅 Kia’s Induction into the AAAS
Congratulations to Kia, who has been inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences alongside a distinguished group of fellow neuroscientists. As an international honorary member, Kia’s induction recognizes her significant contributions to neuroscience, and we’re thrilled to celebrate this milestone with her.
09/21/2024
