I am interested in mechanistic understanding of behavior and how it is shaped by internal state, prior experience, and developmental cues. My scientific career started as a behavioral neuroethologist studying hunting dogs where I optimized multivariate and unsupervised learning methodologies in big data approaches. I quickly however, found the utility of model system where neurogenetic understanding of complex behaviors can be achieved through studying single gene mutations, large omics screens, and altering the activity of single neurons in behaving animals. For the last decade or so I have been exploring how genes and molecules give rise to behaviors, how neuronal circuits and neurophysiology modulate such behaviors, and how developmental, homeostatic, and experience states affect brain function to alter these behaviors in health and dysfunction.

I have spent the last few years understanding fly sleep and designing sleep deprivation assays, identifying critical physiological markers of sleep loss, and pinpointing neural nodes that play a critical role in sleep homeostasis. Capitalizing on my extensive background in behavioral neuroscience and sleep, my future research plans to ask what it means to wake up on the wrong side of the bed.