My research aims at understanding how the interaction of past and present experiences plays out in service of adaptive behavior, and how the brain supports these functions. I study the brain through a (re)constructive lens, and ask how our prior knowledge and memories build our current understanding of the world and how our current experiences reconstruct and update our prior memories. To accomplish this goal, I use innovative experimental paradigms designed to capture the dynamic nature and richness of real-life experiences. I use behavioral, neural, and computational methods to understand the mechanisms at play when humans are engaged in constructive brain processes.
In addition to my work on healthy populations and to build a more comprehensive model of the brain function, I study clinical populations (psychiatric disorders) not only to discover potential impairments, but also to better understand the basic and compensatory computations that enable adaptive behavior.
Prior to joining Columbia, I obtained my PhD in 2019 at Princeton University and before that I received my MD from Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.