Director
Steve W. C. Chang, PhD 
[CV]
Ph.D. (Washington Univ. in St. Louis)
Associate Professor of Psychology and of Neuroscience
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]
I am a Korean-American scientist interested in the neural mechanisms underlying complex social behaviors.
Postdoctoral Associates & Associate Research Scientist
Soo-Ji Baek, PhD (joining Jan 2023)
Postdoctoral Associate
Ph.D. (KIST 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.
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 to oversee and manage the lab.
Guangyao Qi, PhD [github] (joining 2023)
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.
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.
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
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.
Dan Calbick
INP Rotating Student
Dan Calbick 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. Post-graduation, he joined Gregory McCarthy’s lab, studying object recognition in the ventral-visual stream. Currently, he is rotating in the Chang Lab, exploring how oxytocin in the amygdala affects the neural dynamics involved in social behavior. Broadly, he is interested in dynamic networks’ role in encoding complex temporal data into abstract states, important for maintaining stable yet flexible behavior.
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.
Shadé Eleazer
INP Rotating Graduate Student
Shadé received her BS degree in Behavioral Neuroscience and Biomedical Sciences from Marymount Manhattan College. During undergrad, she had numerous research opportunities in the New York City area including at Mount Sinai Hospital, Weil Cornell Medicine, and at Rockefeller University. Before joining Yale, she was a Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain Undergraduate Research Fellow in Vanessa Ruta’s lab at Rockefeller. Shadé is excited to learn more about the neural mechanisms that influence social interactions and social behaviors while rotating in the lab. Shadé is also a part of the inaugural cohort Wu Tsai Institute graduate fellows.
Siqi Fan, PhD
Graduate Student (just graduated!)
Siqi received her BS degree in Neuroscience and Mathematics from Vassar College. She has research experience in a variety of organisms, from flies to humans. She is interested in causal mechanisms underlying social cognition and social decision-making.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Collaborating Members
Graduate Student (McCarthy lab at Yale)
Department of Psychology
Helen is a graduate student in the McCarthy lab who is interested in neuroscience of human cognition. Her prior research at NYU focused on brain stimulation approaches in humans.
Assistant Professor (previous postdoctoral associate)
Department of Psychology
University of Turin, Italy
Olga is a lab alumnus and interested in neurophysiological and neuropharmacological mechanisms underlying social gaze interaction and social decision-making.
Postdoctoral Associate (previous postdoctoral associate)
Ph.D. (University of Arizona)
Philip is a lab alumnus and interested in how neuromodulators influence neural computations in shaping social behaviors.
INP Graduate Student
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 who is collaborating with us in studying neural basis of natural social bahviors in marmosets. Feng is an expert in video-based behavioral tracking of complex behaviors.
Graduate Student (Crockett lab at Princeton)
Yoonseo received her BA degree in Education from Seoul National University and received a prestigious scholarship for her PhD work funded by Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies. Yoonseo is interested in neural computations underlying social decision-making by applying computational models to human fMRI data.
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.
