Director
Steve W. C. Chang, PhD 
[CV]
Associate Professor of Psychology and of Neuroscience
Ph.D. (Washington Univ. in St. Louis)
Co-Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Neuroscience Major (NSCI)
[link]Department of Neuroscience [
profile]
Kavli Institute for Neuroscience [
link]
Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program [link]
Child Study Center [link]
Associated Faculty Member, Yale MacBrain Resource Center [link]
Yale Center for Brain and Mind Health (CBMH) [link]
Steve is a Korean-American scientist interested in the neural mechanisms underlying complex social behaviors.
Postdoctoral Associates & Associate Research Scientist
Amrita Nair, PhD
Associate Research Scientist
Ph.D. (Duke University)
Amrita received her PhD from Duke University working with Michael Platt. For her PhD work, she examined how social status is represented in the posterior cingulate cortex. She helps oversee and manage the lab. She is also involved in various research projects around the lab.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Ph.D. (Washington University in St. Louis)
Weikang received his PhD in Neurosciences working with Camillo Padoa-Schioppa, where he studied the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying value guided decision-making in the orbitofrontal cortex. Weikang is interested in studying the neural mechanisms underlying complex social interaction. Weikang is a Wu Tsai Institute postdoctoral fellow co-mentored by Chang, Nandy, and Jadi.
Postdoctoral Associate
Ph.D. (Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Guangyao received his PhD in Neurosciences working with Liping Wang, where he studied the computational and frontoparietal circuit mechanisms of causal inference in multisensory perception. Guangyao is interested in studying the neural mechanisms underlying social decision-making.
Soo-Ji Baek, PhD
Postdoctoral Associate
Ph.D. (Korea Institute of Science and Technology)
Soo-Ji received her PhD in Neuroscience working with Keiko Tanaka-Yamamoto, where she studied the circuit mechanisms underlying depression-like behaviors and affective processes in VTA-projecting cerebellar neurons. Soo-Ji is interested in studying inter-regional coordination underlying complex social interaction in the brain.
Taylor Wise, PhD (joining summer of 2024)
Postdoctoral Fellow
Ph.D. (Brown University)
Taylor received her PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience working with Rebecca Burwell at Brown University, where she studied the relationship between spatial and social processing in rodents. Taylor is also a recipient of the F99/K00 Award from NINDS, and is interested in social states in the brain.
Clinical Fellow
William Li, MD PhD
Psychiatry Resident, Neuroscience Research Training Program (NRTP)
M.D., Ph.D. (Harvard University)
Will is a Yale psychiatry NRTP resident interested in uncovering mechanisms that go awry in psychosocial disorders using rodent models, and exploring novel treatment options to restore behavioral function.
Software Engineer
Nicholas Fagan
Software Engineer / Programmer
(Yale Class of 2015)
Nick received his BS in Psychology (with Distinction, Neuroscience Track) from Yale University. He is interested in computational neuroscience and anything that is computer science related.
Graduate Students
Olivia Meisner
Graduate Student
Olivia received her BS degree in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology from Emory University. For her research prior to coming to Yale, Olivia studied the development of social attention at Emory and worked on animal models of autism spectrum disorder at MIT. Olivia is interested in neural mechanisms underlying complex social interactions. Olivia is a Gruber Science Fellow, and also a NSF Graduate Research Fellow.
Megha Chawla
Graduate Student
Megha received her BA degree in Psychology from University of Southern California, followed by receiving her Masters level degree in Neuroscience from University College London. Afterwards, she conducted several fMRI studies in humans, including working with Ifat Levy at Yale University School of Medicine. Megha is interested in neural mechanisms underlying social decision-making in humans. Megha is a Manton Foundation Fellow.
Sylvia Blackmore
Graduate Student
Sylvia received her BA degree in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College and Psychology from UC Berkeley. She also received her Masters of Science degree from University College London in Dual Brain and Mind Sciences. She has research experience in computational modeling and neuronal data analyses. Sylvia is a Wu Tsai Institute Graduate Student Fellow.
Jamie Masthay
Graduate Student
Jamie received her BS degree in Psychology from UConn. She has extensive research experience in investigating how catecholamine systems in the brain regulate motivated behaviors. She is generally interested in the neuropsychopharmacological aspects of complex social behaviors.
Prabaha Gangopadhyay
Graduate Student
Prabaha received his integrated BS and MS degrees in Biology from the Indian Institute of Science. For his research prior to joining the lab, Prabaha worked on understanding neural mechanisms of high-level vision in the inferior temporal cortex. Prabaha is interested in neural mechanisms underlying social behavior.
Postbac Researcher
Efe Dogruoz
Postbac Researcher
Efe received his BS degree in Neuroscience from the University of Chicago in 2023. He is interested in the neural mechanisms underlying social cognition and behavior, as well as how these mechanisms are affected by psychopathology.
Undergraduate Students
Karen Ayoub
Undergraduate Student
Karen is in Ezra Stiles college majoring in Psychology. She is particularly interested in childhood development, social behaviors and decision-making, and neurodivergence. She is additionally interested in experiences of anxiety and stress in order to further understand how these factors can manifest physiologically.
Gargi Nandy
Visiting Student
Gargi is a neuroscience major at Brandeis University. She is developing an automated protocol for analyzing social vocalization in the lab.
Katherine Chou
Undergraduate Student
Katherine is a junior in Silliman College studying neuroscience. She is interested in decision-making in social and non-social contexts and understanding how our minds interact with an increasingly technological world. She is specifically intrigued by dynamics of trust, uncertainty, and influence.
Collaborating Members
Olga Dal Monte, PhD
Faculty in the Department of Psychology (previous postdoctoral associate)
University of Turin, Italy
Dr. Dal Monte is a lab alumnus and interested in neurophysiological and neuropharmacological mechanisms underlying social gaze interaction and social decision-making.
Philip Putnam, PhD
Scientist (previous postdoctoral associate)
Dr. Putnam is a lab alumnus and interested in the neural computations underlying complex social behaviors.
Praveen Suthaharan
Graduate Student (Corlett lab at Yale)
Praveen is interested in the behavioral and neural mechanisms underlying paranoia.
Feng Xing
Graduate Student (Nandy lab at Yale)
Feng is a graduate student in Anirvan Nandy’s lab and is studying neural basis of natural social bahviors in marmosets. Feng is an expert in video-based behavioral tracking of complex behaviors.
Yoonseo Zoh
Graduate Student (Crockett lab at Princeton)
Yoonseo is a graduate student in Molly Crockett’s lab and is interested in neural computations underlying social decision-making.
Dan Calbick
INP Graduate Student (Yildirim lab at Yale)
Dan received his B.S. in Neuroscience from Yale in 2020. During undergrad, he did research in the McCormick and Lim labs on vocal-motor coordination and spinal cerebellar ataxia, respectively. Broadly, he is interested in dynamic networks’ role in encoding complex temporal data into abstract states, important for maintaining stable yet flexible behavior.
Alessandro Mazza
Graduate Student (Dal Monte lab at University of Turin)
Alessandro is a graduate student at the University of Turin (Italy), where he studies different aspects of social behavior and its neuro-physiological correlates in humans. His major interests are in the understanding of social decision-making and the analysis of related bioelectrical signals.
Other Members
Coco Chang & Apollo Chang
Official lab mascots
Coco (left) is a friendly, loving, and sometimes goofy old english sheep dog. She loves hiking and hanging out with people =) Apollo is a very curious dude (puppy on the right) and adores Coco.
