We are excited to welcome the new Neuroscience PhD Program students into the Berkeley neuroscience community and to support them in their scientific development. The new students include 16 members of the incoming class of 2026 and new transfer student Zachery Fogg, who is joining us from the lab of Sergey Stavisky. Stavisky will be joining us from UC Davis on January 1, 2027 as an associate professor of neuroscience and a member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute (HWNI), and you can read more about him later in this newsletter.
Members of the incoming class of 2026 are: Madeline Babros, Chloe Christensen, Aanica Gonzales, Lisa Ji, Timna Kleinman, Audrey Laun, Jennifer Lee, Gabriele Quaranta, Aditya Rao, Josephine Robb, Victoria Sinfield, Bethia Sun, Iris Tilton, Marissa Todesco, Ariya Uyeno, and Hannah Yun.
Please join us in giving them a warm welcome!
Top row, L to R: Bethia Sun, Gabriele Quaranta, Zachery Fogg, Marissa Todesco, Victoria Sinfield, Madeline Babros
Middle row, L to R: Iris Tilton, Timna Kleinman, Audrey Laun, Aditya Rao, Ariya Uyeno
Bottom row, L to R: Aanica Gonzales, Hannah Yun, Josephine Robb, Chloe Christensen, Jennifer Lee, Lisa Ji
Photo by Shoey Sindel Photography.
For reference, here's the Stavisky item in this newsletter.
Sergey Stavisky to join UC Berkeley faculty and HWNI
We are pleased to announce that Sergey Stavisky will be joining the UC Berkeley faculty in January 2027 as an associate professor of neuroscience and a member of HWNI. Stavisky currently co-directs the UC Davis Neuroprosthetics Lab, which develops cutting-edge brain-computer interfaces to restore speech to people with paralysis, including patients with advanced amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Stavisky also uses this clinical trial-based research to better understand the fundamental neurobiology of speech and language. Learn more and watch a video of Stavisky showing how his research has helped a patient with ALS to communicate fluently again.