Education

University of California Los Angeles

September 1997-June 2001

 B.S., Neuroscience/Philosophy minor

Magna Cum Laude, College Honors

University of California Los Angeles 

September 2001-June 2006

Ph.D., Psychology/Cognitive Neuroscience

Behavioral Neuroscience Area 

Faculty Appointments

University of California Los Angeles

• July 2023-current: Professor, Department of Psychology, Developmental Area

• November 2022-current: Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Associate Director, Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD)

• September 2021-current: Professor-in-Residence, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences

• September 2021-current: Co-director of Center for Cognitive Neuroscience Analysis Core, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior

• September 2021-current: Member, Brain Research Institute

• November 2021-current: Member, Interdepartmental Ph.D. Program for Neuroscience

University of Miami

• November 2018-August 2021: Founding Director, Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience Division, Department of Psychology

• June 2017-August 2021: Associate Professor, Department of Psychology

• June 2017-August 2021: Founding Director, Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience Graduate Program, Department of Psychology

• January 2014-May 2017: Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology

• June 2014-August 2021: Member, Neuroscience Graduate Program

Stanford University

• April 2010-December 2013: Instructor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science – Child Psychiatry

Postdoctoral Training

Stanford University

July 2008-March 2010: Stanford Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience Laboratory

• Principal Investigator: Dr. Vinod Menon

New York University

July 2006-June 2008: New York University, Child Study Center

• Principal Investigator: Dr. F. Xavier Castellanos

Graduate Training

September 2001-June 2006: UCLA Department of Psychology

• Dissertation advisors: Drs. Eran Zaidel & Marco Iacoboni (co-chairs)

• Committee: Drs. Barbara Knowlton, Mirella Dapretto & Matt Lieberman

• Dissertation title: Neural correlates of visual self-recognition

SUMMARY PAPER

Many agree that, because human brain function is context-dependent and interactionally complex, we should embrace brain networks as the functional units of interest in neuroscience. A more contentious issue for the field of network neuroscience, however, is how to define brain networks in ways that will facilitate further discovery. Important questions that I will address include: What constitutes a brain network? What are the spatial topographies of commonly observed brain networks? How many brain networks exist? Can a taxonomy of brain networks be delineated? What naming conventions and terminology should be adopted to facilitate communication amongst scientists? Building a universal taxonomy of large-scale brain networks will help us reach the goal of making progress along the lines of understanding dynamics, decentralized computation, and emergence in the brain. As this endeavor will require consensus building that may not yet be forthcoming, I will propose interim solutions and suggest best practices for reporting of novel fMRI results to facilitate comparisons between studies to produce interdisciplinary insights.