Our Mission

BrainPost is making it easier to stay informed on the latest neuroscience.

Our Story

In 2017, we set out to change the way neuroscience is communicated. Throughout our academic careers, we have come to recognize the gap that exists between scientists across different fields, and between scientists and the general population.

We make neuroscience more accessible by providing easily digestible and accurate summaries of the latest neuroscience publications. By simplifying this process for you, we make it easier to stay connected and well informed on the latest neuroscientific advances.

We hope you enjoy growing your brain!

Meet the Founders

Leigh Christopher completed her PhD in 2016 at the University of Toronto and a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University in 2018. Her research involved studying brain changes and genetic variability associated with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. She now works as a Behavioral Scientist, applying her research expertise to business challenges and product design.

Kasey Hemington completed her PhD in Medical Science at the University of Toronto, studying the neural mechanisms of pain with neuroimaging techniques. Her work helps to discover how pain and chronic pain are perceived, and how they are represented in the brain. She now works as a Data Scientist, generating actionable insights to solve business challenges.

Meet the Team

Editors

Deborah Joye (see posts) is a Milwaukee-based neuroscientist who received their PhD from Marquette University and a BS in Psychology/Behavioral Neuroscience from UC San Diego. Her scientific research focused on the neural circuitry of circadian rhythms. Her passion for science communication has led her to a career with Stellate Communications where she specializes in helping academic researchers find innovative and approachable ways to share their scientific stories with the world.

Writers

Shireen Parimoo (see posts) is a graduate student at the University of Toronto. She studies age differences in brain structure and activity, and how these are related to cognitive control and memory.

Anastasia Sares (see posts) earned her PhD from McGill University, studying the neural underpinnings of stuttering through behavior and fMRI. She is now a postdoctoral fellow at Colorado State University studying the cognitive neuroscience of schizophrenia.

Lani Cupo (see posts) is a PhD student in neuroscience at McGill University. Her experiments use MRI in mice to understand how prenatal exposure to cannabis affects the brain during development and over the life span.

Meredith McCarty (see posts) is a Neuroscience PhD candidate at UT Health Science Center in Houston in the Tandon Lab. Her research focuses on attention and visual perception using intracranial recordings in humans. 

Rebecca Hill (see posts) is a PhD candidate at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. She studies the neural and hormonal mechanisms underlying vocal development in songbirds.

Soumilee Chaudhuri (see posts) is a PhD candidate at Indiana University School of Medicine. Her research focuses on understanding the disproportionate impact of vascular risk factors on Alzheimer's Disease development in multiethnic diverse populations. She is a passionate science writer and communicator with an interest in the evolving landscape of public health and policy of aging and neurodegenerative disorders. 

Laura Maile (see posts) is a PhD candidate in Neuroscience at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Her research focuses on how chronic stress influences pain behavior and the physiology of neurocircuits using rodent models.

Rachel Sharp (see posts) is a Neuroscience PhD student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She studies how social and environmental factors influence the likelihood that genes related to mental health disorders will result in symptoms, using a bioinformatic approach.

Alumni Writers

Sarah Hill (see posts) is a second-year graduate student at the University of British Columbia. She studies the role of neuroinflammation and immune dysregulation in psychiatric disorders. In her (increasingly rare) free time, she likes to rock climb and travel.

Stephanie Williams (B.A. UChicago ’18) (see posts) is a Visiting Fellow at the Lewis Lab at BU. She studies the neuroscience of sleep using advanced brain imaging techniques.

Flora Moujaes (MRes. UCL '18) (see posts) is a Postgraduate Fellow at the Anticevic Lab at Yale University. She studies cognitive and affective symptoms in Schizophrenia using pharmacological imaging. 

Cody Walters (see posts) is a PhD candidate at the University of Minnesota Medical School. He studies how neural representations in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex relate to decision-making.

Deborah Joye (see posts) is a neuroscience PhD candidate at Marquette University in the Evans Lab. She studies how cells within the brain's master clock signal to one another to stay synchronized and keep everything running on time. Deborah is an alumni writer and current editor for BrainPost.

Amanda McFarlan (see posts) is a second-year PhD student at McGill University. She studies synaptic plasticity in cortical microcircuits in animal models of epilepsy.

Andrew Vo (see posts) is a postdoctoral fellow at the Montreal Neurological Institute. He studies functional and structural brain changes in patients with Parkinson’s disease.

Megan McCullough (see posts) graduated from Western Washington University with a B.A. in Biological Anthropology and a B.S. in Behavioral Neuroscience. Her research focused on the effects of oxidative stress on the learning and memory of C. elegans. In her free time, she loves exploring the local food scene and traveling.

Negar Mazloum-Farzaghi (see posts) is a PhD student at the University of Toronto and Rotman Research Institute. She studies how functional and structural brain changes in aging influences the relationship between eye movement behaviour and memory formation.

Lincoln Tracy (see posts) is a research fellow at Monash University (Melbourne, Australia), where he works on the Burns Registry of Australia and New Zealand. He is broadly interested in studying pain from a social and affective neuroscience perspective.

D. Chloe Chung (see posts) is a postdoctoral associate at Baylor College of Medicine. Her work focuses on understanding molecular culprits responsible for neurodegeneration and protein aggregation in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia. In 2019, she earned her PhD in Neuroscience at Mayo Clinic where she studied seeding and aggregation of protein tau.

Elisa Guma (see posts) is a PhD student at McGill University. She studies how exposure to prenatal maternal immune activation, a known risk factor for psychiatric illness, affects offspring brain development using longitudinal MRI and behavioural assessments in mice as the model species. 

Also see our Occasional Contributors