Hi, I'm Kathleen! I'm a second-year PhD student and NSF Graduate Research Fellow in the Harvard Program in Neuroscience, advised by Dr. Jordan Farrell. I'm excited about using approaches in systems and computational neuroscience to understand the neural basis of learning and memory and the role of sleep on these processes.
Past work
- Sleep, dreams, and creativity: My undergraduate research at MIT sought to understand how sleep and dreams affect waking cognition. We developed protocols for guiding dreams during sleep onset (NREM1) to study their impact on post-sleep creativity. To learn more about this work, please see my co-first author paper on hypnagogic dreams and creativity published in Scientific Reports, as well as feature articles about this work in Science, Scientific American, NIH Research Matters, and MIT News. I also recently presented a talk on this work at the 2024 Cognitive Neuroscience Society conference.
- Visual perception: How do we perceive the world around us? My research on visual perception has focused on understanding the functional organization of the brain's visual system using large-scale neural recordings. As a 2017 Simons Summer Research Fellow at Stony Brook University, I characterized the neural activity of six regions of the visual system (for more, see my 2018 first-author paper in eNeuro and a video about the project). My work as a research intern at the Allen Institute centered on understanding representational drift in the visual system. I presented this work at COSYNE in March 2023 (more coming soon!).
- Science and Technology Policy: I am super intrigued by science and technology policy and have worked on a variety of teams in this space. As a 2023-24 Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society Affiliate, I contributed to a documentation framework for AI transparency. Before that, I also contributed to the World Economic Forum's "AI for Children Toolkit" as a member of their AI Youth Council and wrote a storytelling series on historical milestones in tech history as a communications intern at the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation. I also served as the 2022 Executive Director of the MIT Science and Technology Policy Bootcamp.
Outside the lab, I love hiking, running, crossfit, ice skating, making art, and listening to a good audiobook. I enjoy teaching, mentorship, and community building; I currently volunteer as a fellowship applications mentor through various organizations and serve on the Executive Board of the Harvard Underrepresented Scholars in Neuroscience. Please reach out if you are interested in connecting!