People

NPSL

​PhD Students

• Tucker Fisher, BS Neurosciences Program
• Xulu Sun, BS Biosciences Program
• Saurabh Vyas, BS Bioengineering
• Megan Wang, BS Neurosciences Program
• Jessie Verhein, BS Neurosciences Program and MD/MSTP, joint with Prof. Bill Newsome

Postdoctoral Fellows

• Dr. Laura Driscoll, PhD Joint with Adjunct Prof. David Sussillo
• Dr. Nir Even-Chen, PhD Electrical Engineering
• Dr. Matthew Golub, PhD Joint with Prof. Bill Newsome and Adjunct Prof. David Sussillo
• Dr. Jonathan Michaels, PhD
• Dr. Dan O'Shea, PhD
• Dr. Eric Trautmann, PhD

Laboratory Staff

• Beverly Davis, BS Faculty Administrator, joint with Prof. Subhashish Mitra
• Robyn Reeder, BS
• Mackenzie Risch, BS Head
• Michelle Wechsler, BS

Adjunct Professors

• Prof. Stephen Ryu, MD Department of Neurosurgery, Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Palo Alto, CA
• Prof. David Sussillo, PhD Google Brain, Alphabet, Mountain View, CA

Principal Investigator

• Prof. Krishna Shenoy, PhD

NPTL

Postdoctoral Fellows

• Dr. Sharlene Flesher, PhD
• Dr. Sergey Stavisky, PhD
• Dr. Frank Willett PhD

Laboratory Staff

• Donald Avansino, BS Clinical technician

Principal Investigators

• Prof. Jaimie Henderson, MD
• Prof. Krishna Shenoy, PhD

ALUMNI

PhD Students

1. Dr. Gopal Santhanam, PhD
   • UC Berkeley undergraduate
   • 2001-2006 EE PhD thesis, "Design of higher performance neural prosthetic systems"​​ pdf
   • 2006-2013 Co-founder and Vice President, Total Phase, Inc
   • 2013- Senior Engineer at Waymo
2. Prof. Byron Yu, PhD
   • ​​UC Berkeley undergraduate
   • 2001-2006 EE PhD thesis, "Neural dynamics of movement preparation and execution" pdf
   • 2007-2009 Postdoc in NPSL (joint w/ Prof. Maneesh Sahani at The Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, University College London
   • 2010-2015 Assistant Professor, Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
   • 2015- Associate Professor, "
3. Dr. Afsheen Afshar, MD, PhD
   • ​​Princeton University undergraduate
   • 2004-2008 EE PhD thesis, "Neural mechanisms of motor preparation and applications to prostheses" pdf
   • 2008-2010 Completed medical school (MSTP, MD) at Stanford University
   • 2010-2016 VP Goldman Sachs, New York City
   • 2016-2017 Head, Data Sciences, JP Morgan, New York City
   • 2017- Private equity, New York City
4. Prof. John Cunningham, PhD
   • ​​​Dartmouth College undergraduate
   • 2004-2009 EE PhD thesis, "Algorithms for understanding motor cortical processing and neural prosthetic systems" pdf
   • 2009 Postdoc in NPSL
   • 2009 Accepted Assistant Professorship in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University, Saint Louis (WUSTL)
   • 2010-2011 Postdoc with Prof. Zoubin Ghahramani, Department of Engineering, Cambridge University
   • 2011-2013 Assistant Professor, WUSTL
   • 2013-2017 Assistant Professor, Department of Statistics & Neuroscience, Columbia University
   • 2017- Associate Professor, "
5. Prof. Vikash Gilja, PhD
   • ​​MIT undergraduate
   • 2004-2010 CS PhD thesis, "Towards clinically viable neural prosthetic systems" pdf
   • 2010-2013 Research associate, NPTL, Stanford University
   • 2013- Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, San Diego
   • 2017-2018 Neuralink Inc.
6. Prof. Cindy Chestek, PhD
   • ​​Case Western Reserve University undergraduate
   • 2005-2010 EE PhD thesis, "Measurements and technology for long-term neural prosthetic systems" pdf
   • 2010-2012 Research associate, NPTL, Stanford University
   • 2012-2018 Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan
   • 2018- Associate Professor (with tenure), "
7. Dr. Rachel Kalmar, PhD
   • ​​UC San Diego undergraduate
   • 2005-2010 Neurosciences Program PhD thesis, "Moving through the brain: A study of movement preparation in the oculomotor and reach systems" pdf
   • 2010- various Bay Area biomedical industry startups
   • 2016- Harvard graduate school
8. Prof. Matthew Kaufman, PhD
   • ​​Stanford University undergraduate
   • 2005-2011 Neurosciences Program PhD thesis, "Neural mechanisms and dynamics underlying reaching and decision making" pdf
   • 2011-2012 Postdoc in NPSL
   • 2012-2017 Postdoc with Prof. Anne Churchland at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
   • 2017- Assistant Professor, Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago
9. Dr. Zuley Rivera Alvidrez, PhD
   • ​​University of Arizona undergraduate
   • 2005-2011 EE PhD thesis, "Low-dimensional neural features reflect the features of muscle activation" pdf
   • 2011- Novelist, New York City
10. Prof. Paul Nuyujukian, MD, PhD
    • ​UCLA undergraduate
    • 2007-2012 BioE PhD thesis, "Towards clinically relevant neural prostheses" pdf
    • 2012-2014 Completed medical school (MSTP, MD) at Stanford University
    • 2014-2017 Postdoc with NPTL, Stanford University
    • 2017- Assistant Professor, Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University
11. Dr. Werapong Goo, PhD
    • Duke University Undergraduate
    • 2009-2014 BioE PhD thesis, "Development of optogenetics for motor systems neuroscience in non-human primates" pdf
    • 2014- Senior Associate, Boston Consulting Group, Bangkok, Thailand
12. Dr. Justin Foster, PhD
    • ​​Columbia University undergraduate
    • 2007-2014 EE PhD thesis, "A freely-moving monkey treadmill model" pdf
    • 2014- Data Scientist, Everstring
13. Dr. K. Cora Ames, PhD
    • University of Chicago undergraduate
    • 2009-2014 Neurosciences PhD thesis, "Neural dynamics of reaching following incorrect, absent, or last-minute preparation" pdf
    • 2014- Postdoc with Prof. Mark Churchland and Prof. Larry Abbott at Columbia University
14. Dr. Sergey Stavisky, PhD
    • Brown University undergraduate
    • 2010-2016 Neurosciences PhD thesis, "Advancing motor neural prosthesis robustness and neuroscience" pdf
    • 2016- Postdoc with NPTL, Stanford University
15. Prof. Jonathan Kao, PhD
    • Stanford University undergraduate
    • 2010-2016 EE PhD thesis, "Decoder algorithm design for high-performance and robust neural prostheses" pdf
    • 2016-2017 Postdoc with NPSL
    • 2017- Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles
16. Dr. Dan O'Shea, PhD
    • ​​Princeton University undergraduate
    • 2009-2016 Neurosciences PhD thesis, "Probing the motor cortical dynamics of flexible feedback control" pdf
    • 2017- Postdoc with NPSL
17. Dr. Eric Trautmann, PhD
    • ​​Dartmouth University undergraduate
    • 2011-2018 Neurosciences PhD thesis, "Neural dynamics of motor preparation and tools for large scale neuroscience"
    • 2018- Postdoc with NPSL

MS Students

1. Dr. Joline Fan, MS
   • Princeton University undergraduate
   • 2009-2011 Bioengineering MS
   • 2011-2015 Medical school, UCSF
   • 2015- Neurology resident, UCSF
2. Shikhar Shrestha, MS
   • IIT undergraduate
   • 2014-2015 Mechanical Engineering MS
   • 2015- Mechanical Engineering PhD program at Stanford
3. Allan Raventos, MS
   • ​​2015-2016 NPTL, Stanford University
   • 2016-2017 Stanford University undergraduate, EE MS.
4. ​Iliana Bray, BS
   • Stanford University undergraduate
   • 2016-2017 REU summer student and undergraduate
   • 2017-2018 PhD student
   • 2018- PhD student with Professor Paul Nuyujukian, Stanford University
5. Avery Krieger, BS
   • University of Pennsylvania undergraduate
   • 2017-2018 PhD student
   • 2019- PhD student with Professor Tom Clandinin, Stanford University

Postdoctoral Fellows

1. Prof. Stephen Ryu, MS, MD
   • ​​Stanford Universty undergrad and masters
   • UC San Diego Medical School
   • 2002-2004 Postdoc
   • 2004-2006 Completing neurosurgery residency, Stanford University
   • 2006- Adjunct Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
   • 2006-2009 Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University
   • 2009- Department of Neurosurgery, Palo Alto Medical Foundation
2. Prof. Aaron Batista, PhD
   • ​​Caltech graduate school
   • 2003-2007 Postdoc
   • 2007-2015 Assistant Professor, Department of Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh
   • 2015- Associate Professor (with tenure), "
3. Prof. Byron Yu, PhD
   • ​​Stanford University graduate school (NPSL)
   • 2007-2009 Postdoc (joint w/ Prof. Maneesh Sahani at The Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, University College London
   • 2010-2015 Assistant Professor, Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
   • 2015- Associate Professor, "
4. Prof. John Cunningham, PhD
   • ​​Stanford University graduate school (NPSL)
   • 2009 Postdoc
   • 2009 Accepted Assistant Professorship in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University, Saint Louis (WUSTL)
   • 2010-2011 Postdoc with Prof. Zoubin Ghahramani, Department of Engineering, Cambridge University
   • 2011-2013 Assistant Professor, WUSTL
   • 2013-2017 Assistant Professor, Department of Statistics & Neuroscience, Columbia University
   • 2017- Associate Professor, "
5. Prof. Mark Churchland, PhD
   • ​​​​UC San Francisco graduate school
   • 2001-2007 Postdoc
   • 2007-2011 Research Associate
   • 2011- Assistant Professor, Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University
6. Prof. Cindy Chestek, PhD
   • Stanford University graduate school (NPSL)
   • 2010-2012 Research associate, NPTL, Stanford University
   • 2012-2018 Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan
   • 2018- Associate Professor (with tenure), "
7. Prof. Vikash Gilja, PhD
   • Stanford University Graduate School (NPSL)
   • 2010-2013 Research associate, NPTL, Stanford University
   • 2013- Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, San Diego
   • 2017-2018 Neuralink Inc.
8. Prof. Ilka Diester, PhD
   • ​​Eberhart-Karls-University, Tubigen, Germany graduate school
   • 2008-2011 Postdoc
   • 2011-2014 Assistant Professor, Ernst Strüngmann Institute / Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt, Germany
   • 2014- Professor, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
9. Dr. Paul Kalanithi, MD
   • ​​Yale University medical school
   • 2010-2012 Postdoc
   • 2012-2015 Completed neurosurgery residency at Stanford University
   • March 2015, In loving memory of our dear friend and group mate
     • Obituary 
     • When Breath Becomes Air by Dr. Paul Kalanithi. Amazon
10. Prof. Matt Kaufman, PhD
    • ​​Stanford University graduate school (NPSL)
    • 2011-2012 Postdoc
    • 2012-2017 Postdoc with Prof. Anne Churchland at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
    • 2017- Assistant Professor, Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago
11. Prof. David Sussillo, PhD
    • ​Columbia University graduate school
    • 2010-2014 Postdoc
    • 2014- Brain Group, Google
    • 2017- Adjunct Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
12. Prof. Chethan Pandarinath, PhD 
    • ​​Cornell University graduate school
    • 2011-2016 Postdoc in NPTL
    • 2016- Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Emory University & Georgia Tech
13. Prof. Jonathan Kao, PhD
    • Stanford University graduate school (NPSL)
    • 2016-2017 Postdoc with NPSL
    • 2017- Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles
14. Prof. Paul Nuyujukian, MD, PhD​
    • Stanford University graduate school (NPSL)
    • 2014-2017 Postdoc with NPTL, Stanford University
    • 2017- Assistant Professor, Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University
15. Dr. Matthew MacDougall, MD
    • ​​UC San Diego, neurosurgery residency
    • 2016-2017 Neurosurgery Fellow with Prof. Jaimie Henderson, Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University
    • 2017- Department of Neurosurgery, California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC), San Francisco, CA
    • 2018- Neuralink Inc.
16. Dr. Chand Chandrasekaran, PhD
    • ​Princeton University graduate school
    • 2011-2018 Postdoc with NPSL, Stanford University
    • 2019- Assistant Professor, Departments of Anatomy and Neurobiology & Psychology and Brain Sciences, Boston University

Laboratory Staff

1. Missy Howard, RVT, RLATG 2002-2005 Laboratory staff. 2006-2010 IACUC Inspection Manager in Office of Vice Provost and Dean of Research, Research Compliance, Stanford University. 2010- Private practice, Montana.
2. Evie Kalmar, BS 2007 Laboratory assistant, part time. 2007- Medical school at UCSF, and public policy at UC Berkeley.
3. Heather Graham, BS 2007-2008 Laboratory assistant, part time. 2008-2012 Veterinary school, Virginia Tech.
4. Willie Phan, BS 2008-2009 Laboratory assistant, part time. 2009-2013 Veterinary school, UC Davis.
5. Stacey Kang, BS 2009-2010 Laboratory assistant, part time. 2010-2014 Veterinary school, UC Davis. 2014-2016 Veterinary resident, Department of Comparative Medicine, Stanford University.
6. Drew Haven, BS 2006-2010 Computer and network systems analysist, joint with faculty in the Department of Neurobiology. 2008-2012 Part time masters studented in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University. 2012- Industry positions, then Google.
7. Wendy Kalkus, BS 2010-2011 Laboratory assistant, part time. 2011-2012 Marine sciences intern. 2012-2016 Veterinary school, UC Davis.
8. Erica Morgan, BS 2011-2012 Laboratory staff, part time. 2013-2017 Veterinary school, UC Davis.
9. Sandra Eisensee 2001-2013 Financial analyst and administrative associate. 2013- Retired.
10. John Aguayo, MS 2010-2013 Laboratory staff, joint with Prof. Karl Deisseroth. 2013- System software developer with Prof. Kwabena Boahen, Stanford University.
11. Clare Sherman, BS 2011-2013 Laboratory staff, part time. 2013-2017 Veterinary school, Cornell University.
12. Boris Osktotsky, PhD 2010-2014 Computer and network systems analysist, joint with faculty in the Department of Neurobiology. 2014-2015 Stanford University School of Medicine. 2015- UCSF.
13. Armand Smith, BS 2014-2015 Computer and network systems analyist, joint with Neurobiology faculty.
14. Evelyn Castaneda, MBA 2010-2015 DARPA REPAIR program manager. 2015- Department of Chemistry, SLAC / Stanford University.
15. Rosie Steinbach, BS 2014-2016 Laboratory staff, part time. 2016- Oregon Primate Center.
16. Shannon Smith, BS 2014-2016 Laboratory staff, part time. 2015-2016 MS program, Stanford University. 2016- Veterinary school, UC Davis.
17. Christine Blabe, MS 2010-2017 NPTL clinical technician. 2017- research coordinator, Dept. of Neurology, Stanford University.
18. Noel Aliyyah, BS 2016-2017. Laboratory staff, part time.
19. Lucas Cofer, BS 2016-2017 Laboratory staff during gap year. Harvard University undergraduate . 2017- NYU medical school.
20. Liana Yates, BS 2013-2016 Laboratory staff, part time. 2016-2017 Laboratory staff (full time). 2017- UC Davis veterinary school.
21. Dr. Beata Jarosiewicz, PhD 2016-2018 Senior Research Scientist. 2018- Neuropace Inc.
22. Andrea Craig, BS 2016-2018 Laboratory staff, 2018- Laboratory staff, Harousch Lab, Dept. of Neurobiology, Stanford University.
23. Paymon Rezaii, BS 2017-2018 NPTL Clinical technician. 2018- reseach coordinator, Dept. of Neurosurgery, Stanford University

Summer interns - Research Experience for Undergrads (EE REUs)

1. Johnson Huang, BS (2001-2002) Next: MIT EECS graduate school
2. Justin Blanco, BS (2002-2003) Next: U Penn, BioE gradate school
3. R. Carter Dunn, BS (2004 summer) Next: MIT MBA, Current: Boston Consulting Group
4. Erem Boto, BS (2005 summer, Biology REU) Next: NeuroPace, Inc., Next: founder CloudMed, Next: co-founder eGraphs (acquired by Linked In), Current: Linked In.
5. Neil Achtman, BS (2005 summer) Next: Intel 
6. Alex Chan, BS (2007 summer) Next: MIT EECS graduate student
7. Joya Deri, BS (2008 summer) Next: Stanford, EE co-term student, Currently: CMU, EE graduate student
8. Ogi Zivojnovic, BS (2008 summer) Next: Stanford, EE co-term, Next: Qualcomm
9. Vivek Athalye, BS (2010 summer) Next: UC Berkeley, EE graduate student
10. Chip Schulman, BS (2010 summer) Next: Stanford, EE co-term student
11. Gil Shotan, BS (2010, 2011 summers) Next: Stanford, EE co-term student
12. Aaron Zarraga, BS (2010 summer) Next: Stanford, EE co-term student
13. Chia-Jung (Dana) Chang, BS (2011 summer), from National Taiwan University (joint with Prof. Teresa Meng) Next: NTU undergraduate, Next: JHU, Bioengineering graduate student, Currently: MIT EECS graduate student
14. Jai Sajnani (2013 summer, NPTL) Next: Stanford, EE undergraduate (continuing)
15. Steven Lin (2014 summer, winter) Next: Stanford, EE undergraduate
16. Axel Sly (2015 summer) Next: Stanford, EE undergraduate
17. Alexander Sosa (2015 summer) Next: Stanford, EE undergraduate
18. Chayakorn (Tun) Pongsiri (2015 summer) Next: Stanford, EE undergraduate
19. Iliana Bray (2016 summer, daily advisor: Chand) Next: Stanford, EE undergraduate
20. Sabar Dasgupta (2016 summer, daily advisor: Paul) Next: Stanford, EE undergraduate
21. Pavan Mehrotra (2016 summer, daily advisor: Paul) Next: Stanford, EE undergraduate
22. Allan Raventos (2016 summer, daily advisor: Sergey) Next: Stanford, EE masters student
23. Blue Sheffer (2016 summer, daily advisor: Sergey) Next: Stanford, EE undergraduate
24. Nick Sovich (2016 summer, daily advisor: Eric) Next: Stanford, EE undergraduate
25. Gabriel Vega (2016 summer, daily advisor: Sergey) Next: Stanford, EE undergraduate