Hannah

Hannah Lamont is a PhD Candidate in Neuroscience at Rutgers University. She independently managed her undergraduate education while working as a freelance harpist and caring for her 92-year-old grandmother living at the family home. This caregiving role ignited her passion for improving the aging experience. Her interest in mind-body health interventions and biopsychosocial wellness spurred her to pursue graduate work at D’Youville College where she graduated summa cum laude with a chiropractic degree, an M.Sci. degree, and a clinical research certificate. Hannah’s doctoral research focuses on the neural mechanism underlying the relationship between social isolation and glucose homeostasis. Hannah’s long-term goal is to expand on this work to study how social connectivity and specific social relationships might mitigate age-related cognitive decline.

Adrien Fillon

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Joshua Gills

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Giada Benasi

Giada is a research scientist with a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Bologna, Italy. Her doctoral research primarily focused on the impact of psychological well-being interventions on health behaviors among individuals with type 2 diabetes, obesity, and sleep disturbances. Following her Ph.D., she completed a three-year postdoctoral research fellowship at Columbia University, where she received advanced training in the assessment of sleep and cardiometabolic health.

She is dedicated to exploring the psychosocial influences on health, with the goal of developing effective behavioral interventions that enhance both psychological and physiological health outcomes for individuals with chronic medical conditions. Her work is characterized by a strong interdisciplinary approach, integrating insights from psychology, medicine, and public health to address complex health issues.

Through her innovative research and evidence-based practices, she strives to improve the quality of life for those living with chronic illnesses, making significant contributions to the field of health psychology.

Hunter Lanovoi

Hunter Lanovoi is a Ph.D. Candidate at Rutgers University. His dissertation work defines the role that oxytocinergic neuromodulation in the central nucleus of amygdala plays in the changes in social decision-making observed during sickness. His work has found that, in mice, social decision-making during sickness depend on social rank and sex and that responses from oxytocin receptor expressing neurons in the central amygdala signal salient conspecifics. In tandem Hunter is actively engaged in science policy, having served as the former president of the Science Policy and Advocacy group at Rutgers (SPAR). Hunter holds a Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Rollins College.

Biswaranjan Sahoo

Biswa is a postdoc at Rutgers University. During his Masters, he got exposure to neuroscience research through an internship at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi. He became fascinated by the functioning of the marvelous brain specifically the neural mechanism of learning and memory. This motivated him to pursue his doctoral studies on the role of protein tyrosine sulfation in long-term memory and long-term potentiation in the Learning and Memory lab at National Brain Research Centre. He is currently working on the neural mechanism for social thermoregulation.His long-term research plan is to study the role of physical exercises on brain health and congitive functions like learning and memory, the effects of Yoga on mind-body connections.

Teesta Naskar

https://teestanaskar.github.io...

Teesta is a post doctoral scientist at Mount Sinai hospital, New York. Her research focuses on how early environmental exposures shape brain development, particularly in relation to neuropsychiatric disorders and behavioral outcomes. She is dedicated to uncovering the mechanisms by which environmental factors during critical periods contribute to the onset and progression of these conditions.

In her academic and research career, she studied the interaction between genetic predispositions and environmental influences on brain function. Her doctoral research explored the impact of specific gene clusters on cognitive skills, revealing how genetic variations affect neural connectivity.

Currently, in postdoctoral work, she is investigating how prenatal and early postnatal exposures, such as prenatal cannabinoid exposure, influence brain development and behavior. This research has shown significant effects on placental transcriptomics and proteomics, and their subsequent impact on offspring.

In the future, she aims to establish herself as an independent neuroscientist, spearheading research that links early environmental exposures to long-term neuropsychiatric health. Her goal is to prevent and treat neuropsychiatric disorders by fostering collaborations and developing strategies grounded in an understanding of their environmental and developmental origins.