MeCo Lab Team
Sebnem Nur Tuncdemir, PhD
Principal Investigator, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at the UConn Health. Her research investigates how the neural circuits that encode specific features of contexts are organized in adults and to elucidate the developmental mechanisms underlying their formation. She is particularly interested in forming an integrated view of hippocampal circuit function from the activity of its component cell types at multiple time scales, and across the lifespan. This will provide new biomarkers for disorders characterized by impaired cognitive discrimination such as PTSD and depression.
Andres Daniel Grosmark, PhD
Principal Investigator, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at the UConn Health. Andres is a systems neuroscientist interested in understanding the circuit mechanisms which determines why some memories are kept for life-time while others are quickly forgotten. In particular, he is fascinated by the question of how diverse neural circuits and processes, including those occurring during distinct behavioral states, uniquely contribute to long-term memory formation. In turn, a better appreciation for this diversity in memory-forming mechanisms will provide unique insights that can be leveraged to understand and develop targeted treatments for neuropathologies which affect specific parts of the memory formation process, such as those seen in schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease and age-related mild cognitive impairments.
Lorena Andreoli, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow. Lorena completed her PhD under the supervision of Drs Uusisaari and Wickens at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) where she studied hippocampal encoding of different navigational strategies. She is currently investigating how norepinephrine signals in the hippocampus influence memory consolidation, with the long-term goal of understanding how the brain makes sense of the world around us.
Oluwatomisin Faniyan, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow. Tomi completed his PhD under the supervision of Drs. de Vivo and Bellesi at the Brain and Sleep Research Laboratory, University of Camerino, Italy, where he studied the long-term behavioral and neural consequences of adolescent sleep restriction. He is currently investigating whether neuronal populations supporting contextual memory discrimination are organized by developmental origin. His long-term goal is to understand how developmental differences among neuronal populations influence their vulnerability to adolescent sleep loss and its lasting behavioral consequences.
Ceren Akgul, MSc
PhD Student. Ceren earned her BA in Psychology from Bilkent University and an MSc in Cognitive Psychology from the Middle East Technical University. She is a PhD candidate in Biomedical Sciences program, studying the stress dependent modulation of hippocampal inputs.
Kelsey Walsh, BA
PhD Student. Kelsey earned their BA in Neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania and is currently an MD/PhD candidate in Biomedical Sciences at UConn Health. Their research focuses on memory consolidation and arousal-related deficits in presymptomatic and symptomatic models of Alzheimer’s disease.
Quinn Fong
Research Assistant. Quinn graduated from UConn in 2026 with a degree in Physiology & Neurobiology. As a recipient of an IBACS grant and a former UConn Health Research Program scholar, they are currently investigating how noradrenergic projections from the locus coeruleus to different brain regions contribute to learning and memory. They also manage the lab’s mouse colony.
Eva Lacey
Undergraduate Assistant. Eva is majoring in Physiology & Neurobiology at UConn and is a former UConn Health Research Program scholar. She is currently assisting with experiments investigating state-dependent mechanisms of memory consolidation in the hippocampus.
Ananya Jayaram
Undergraduate Assistant. Ananya is a majoring in Physiology & Neurobiology at UConn. She is assisting in experiments dissecting neurobiological mechanisms of contextual memory encoding
Dimitrios Koloutsos
Research Assistant. Dimtry graduated from UConn in 2026 with a degree in Physiology & Neurobiology and is currently pursuing an MS in Intraoperative Neuromonitoring and Surgical Neurophysiology at UConn. His research focuses on how noradrenergic projections from the locus coeruleus to different brain regions contribute to learning and memory.
Kathryn Samson
Undergraduate Assistant. Kathryn is majoring in Physiology & Neurobiology with a minor in Mathematics at UConn. She is currently assisting in experiments that investigate the effects of early-life experiences on the hippocampal circuits of mice.
Brady Cheneski
Undergraduate Assistant. Brady is majoring in Physiology & Neurobiology, and Molecular & Cellular Biology departments at UConn. As a SURF scholar, he is currently examining neurobiological mechanisms of memory generalization to gain further insight into the mechanisms of PTSD in hippocampal and cortical regions.
MeCo Lab Alumni
Anika Agrawal
Anika graduated from UConn in 2026 with a degree in Physiology & Neurobiology, where she was part of the Special Program in Medicine. As a recipient of IBACS and IDEAS grants, she investigated how early-life experiences influence hippocampal circuits during critical periods of memory formation in mice.
Naveed Ghani, MSc
Research Assistant. Naveed holds a BA in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and an MS in Medical Sciences from Boston University. Prior to joining MeCo Lab, he studied the molecular mechanisms of drug addiction in the laboratories of Drs. Heng-ye Man and Kathleen Kantak. During his time at MeCo Lab, he investigated the neurobiological mechanisms underlying long-term memory consolidation. He is currently a PhD candidate at UMass Amherst.
Aditi Malpure
Undergraduate Assistant. Aditi graduated from UConn with degrees in Molecular & Cellular Biology and Psychology, where she was part of the Special Program in Medicine. As a SURF scholar, she investigated the neurobiological mechanisms of memory generalization in hippocampal and cortical circuits, with the goal of gaining insight into the neural mechanisms underlying PTSD. She is currently a Research Assistant in the Shackman Lab at the University of Maryland.
Nicholas Kats, BS.
Research Assistant. Nick holds a BS in Biomedical Engineering and Applied Mathematics from Johns Hopkins University. Prior to joining MeCo Lab, he worked on designing biological controllers for the treatment of spinal cord injuries at the HEPIUS Lab. During his time at MeCo Lab, he investigated the neurobiological mechanisms underlying contextual memory encoding and managed the lab’s mouse colony. He is currently at New York University (NYU) in Computer Science.
Anvar Sariev, MD, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow. Anvar completed his PhD under the supervision of Dr. Sebastien Royer at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology. His research focuses on understanding how ideas emerge and evolve through sequential patterns of activity in complex neural networks. He is currently at the Center for Advanced Technologies in Uzbekistan.