students

Seyda is a graduate student in the Neuroscience Department at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, studying predictive processing and perception in autism. She is investigating how individuals with autism make predictions and update these predictions according to new information in changing environments, using electrophysiological recordings (EEG), pupillometry, computational modeling, and binocular rivalry. Seyda received a B.S. in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey, and an M.S. in Neurobiology and Behavior from Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with friends, listening audiobooks, kayaking, and imagining the future of science-fiction.
Research interests: Autism Spectrum Disorders, Predictive Processing, Perception, Bayesian Learning, Event Related Potentials, Pupillometry, Binocular Rivalry

Ilana Vasilisa is a graduate student in the Neuroscience Department at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Her work focuses on understanding the nature and mechanisms underlying ANKS1B Haploinsufficiency Syndrome, a rare monogenic disorder. This syndrome presents itself with symptoms such as Autism Spectrum Disorder, speech and motor deficits, and morphological brain abnormalities. Therefore, Ilana will be studying this syndrome in a translational way by using transgenic mouse models, patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells, and human data for neuroimaging analysis. For this project, Ilana is co-mentored by Dr. Sophie Molholm and Dr. Bryen Jordan. Ilana received a B.A. in Biology with a concentration in Behavioral Neurobiology from Hunter College, City University of New York and an M.S. in Neuroscience from the Graduate Division of Biomedical Science from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, reading, video games, cooking, drawing, and traveling.
Research interests: Rare Diseases, Autism Spectrum Disorders, GTPase Activation, Stem Cells and Induced Neurons, Axonal Morphology, MRI, DTI, and EEG analysis.