Co-Founders
Ken Igarza
Ken (he/him/his) is a third-year PhD student, NSF-GRFP Fellow in Dr. Annegret Falkner at PNI. As a queer, Latinx, first-generation college graduate from a low-income family of immigrants, Ken partnered with colleagues at PNI to launch EPSP: an organization striving to shift the academic culture and infrastructure of neuroscience research to care for all researchers.
Bri Carvajal
Bri (she/her/hers) is a second-year graduate student and Presidential Fellow at PNI. She is broadly interested in how early life experiences lead to structural and genomic changes in the brain. Bri is one of the Co-founders of EPSP and identifies as a first-gen, low-income, Latinx woman who is a passionate advocate for equity, diversity and inclusion in research.
Facilitators
Dakota Blackman
Journal Club Co-Facilitator
Dakota (she/her) is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in Annegret Falkner’s lab. She studies the intersection of social dominance hierarchies and sensory processing, or, in other words, the ways in which an individual’s social rank impacts how they interact with the world. Dakota is one of the co-facilitators of the EPSP journal club, where she co-leads discussions on the intersection of race, class, and gender with science and academia.
Jorge Iravedra
Journal Club Co-Facilitator
Jorge (he/him) is a third-year graduate student at PNI in the laboratory of Dr. Annegret Falkner, where he studies the neural network basis of persistent aggression using high-throughput optical methods. He currently serves as co-facilitator for the EPSP Journal Club, in which he co-leads discussions on the intersection of race, class, and gender with science and academia.
Jess Breda
Outreach Co-Facilitator
Jess (she/her) is a third year Ph.D. student in the lab of Carlos Brody. She studies working memory and decision-making in mice and rats. Currently, she serves as an EPSP Outreach Facilitator. After working for the outreach company Backyard Brains Jess developed a passion for citizen science and hopes to make neuroscience accessible and hands-on for all audiences.
We are currently interviewing candidates for this position.
Outreach Co-Facilitator
Rebekah Rashford
Speakers Facilitator
Rebekah Rashford (she/her) is a fourth-year Ph.D. Candidate in the neuroscience department, working in the lab of Catherine Peña on the effects that early life stress have on genomic organization. Rebekah is the Speakers Facilitator for EPSP and aims to give a space and voice to every student in the department.
Representatives
Department of Neuroscience
Mae Guthman
Post-Doctoral Fellow Representative
Dr. Eartha Mae Guthman (she/her//e/er) is a queer trans woman, neuroscientist, and anarchist. Mae is a postdoctoral research associate in the lab of Dr. Annegret Falkner and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Applied Transgender Studies. She is interested in understanding how hormones flexible coordinate neural circuit dynamics during social behavior. In er lab work, e studies the role of estrogen receptor alpha in orchestrating the dynamics of a brain-wide network of hormone-sensitive neural populations in socially interacting mice. Outside of lab, she is involved in interdisciplinary work with other queer and trans neuroscientists, ecologists, health care professionals, and researchers, and STS scholars to apply queer, trans, and feminist theory to biology. As a queer trans woman doing the research, e occupies space typically held by cishet men and does science related to queer biology and health with an intentional eye towards the well-being of and respect for her community.
If you are interested in this position, please apply below!
Research Speciliast Representative
If you are interested in this position, please apply below!
Pre-Generals Graduate Student Representative
Liz Tawa
Post-Generals Graduate Student Representative
Liz is a fourth-year PhD candidate at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute in the Notterman lab, where she studies behavioral genetics and brain structural plasticity in animal models of stress. She graduated from Swarthmore College in 2015 with a BA in Neuroscience and Linguistics and earned a Master of Public Health in 2021 from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Outside of neuroscience, Liz has strong interests in public health research and practice and the protection of diversity, equity, and inclusion in academic settings. She can generally be found on a run or taking care of guinea pigs.
Ines Aitsahalia
Undergraduate Representative
Ines Aitsahalia (she/her) is a junior in the Princeton Neuroscience Institute working in the Niv Lab. She studies psychiatric disorders from a computational, behavioral, and social perspective. She is passionate about disability justice and how mental health interacts with marginalized identities. As Undergrad Representative, she focuses on bringing EPSP’s mission to undergraduate students interested in studying the brain and bringing undergraduate concerns to PNI.
Representatives
Department of Psychology
We are currently interviewing candidates for this position.
Post-Doctoral Fellow Representative
Casey McMahon
Research Speciliast Representative
If you are interested in this position, please apply below!
Pre-Generals Graduate Student Representative
We are currently interviewing candidates for this position.
Post-Generals Graduate Student Representative
Munisa Said
Undergraduate Representative
Munisa Said (she/her) is a junior in the Psychology Department. At Princeton, she is the president of Princeton for Health Literacy and Equity, formerly known as Insure Jersey, which seeks to raise awareness of health issues that affect college-aged students as well as advocate for health disparities within the undocumented immigrant and refugee community. She is also passionate about educational equality and making academic spaces more empowering and inclusive.