The brain is composed of circuits, elegantly connected and displaying diversity in their elements. Dr. Krook-Magnuson’s research uses cutting-edge techniques to improve our understanding of neuronal connectivity and diversity in health and disease, and to then use this information to design intervention strategies for neurological disorders, including epilepsy.

Religious freedom is one of the founding principles of American democracy. But modern ideas about religion and freedom emerged within a colonial slave society. As my research shows, under the institution of slavery, some religious practices were deemed legitimate while others were criminalized. Recognizing the complex dynamic between race, belief, and danger shows that we must examine the history of slavery in order to understand the meaning of religion and the concept of religious freedom.

Respiratory disease is the second leading cause of death worldwide, and is often initiated by the exposure to airborne pollutants. Understanding how microscopic particles travel in air and inside our airways is therefore of paramount importance. Filippo Coletti uses high-speed laser imaging to track suspended particles, and medical imaging to follow their path in 3D printed replicas of human lungs. This is shedding new light on how air quality impacts our health.

The microbial communities that colonize the human body are involved in many human diseases. Since the same diseases are also affected by human genes, characterizing the interplay between the microbiome and human genetics is central to understanding human biology and disease. Ran Blekhman utilizes high-throughput genomic technologies and advanced analytical approaches to integrate human and microbiome genomic big data, with the goal of understanding how the microbiome affects disease and developing microbiome-based therapies.

Elaine Auyoung uses cognitive research on reading to uncover the relationship between narrative technique and literary experience. Her current book project explores and illuminates cognitive biases that have shaped longstanding narrative conventions. By demonstrating how the stories we tell ourselves can delimit our capacity to understand the world, this project seeks to cultivate broader critical awareness about the habits of mind that hinder us from comprehending and addressing global challenges.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a non-invasive and radiation-free medical imaging technology that has found immense utility in the diagnosis of numerous diseases and biomedical research, for instance in understanding the human brain. Despite its advantages, MRI still faces major challenges in acquisition duration, necessitating trade-offs in spatial and temporal resolutions. Mehmet’s research develops transformative new methods for fast high-precision MRI to enable the visualization of structures that cannot be characterized with current technology.

Addictive behaviors are major sources of preventable death caused by genetic factors and environmental circumstance. Dr. Vrieze studies such factors in order to identify causal mechanisms in the development of addiction, with the ultimate goal of designing interventions based on this causal understanding. His laboratory uses cutting edge genomic tools and rigorous experimental design to discover genes associated with addiction, and characterize the biological and social mechanisms by which addictive drugs act.

The Smanski group works on diverse projects that share a common theme of leveraging technologies in DNA synthesis/assembly (i.e. writing and composing genetic information) to reprogram living systems. Recently, they have successfully engineered bacteria to produce a potent neuroprotective drug and engineered mammalian cells to produce therapeutic proteins. In parallel, they have invented and demonstrated a new approach for creating effective and safe bio-pesticides that will control populations of insect pests, disease vectors, and invasive species.

The ongoing miniaturization of conventional semiconductor-based computers rapidly approaches fundamental limits dictated by the laws of quantum mechanics. To transcend these limitations and develop more powerful computers, it is paramount to consider new classes of materials, which fully embrace the richness of quantum mechanics. The Pribiag lab applies innovative nanofabrication and low-temperature measurement techniques to uncover the electronic properties of new low-dimensional material systems and to develop quantum devices that could enable future computing paradigms.

Soheil Mohajer develops technologies for storage, transmission, and processing of massive amounts of data in a distributed fashion. The proposed solutions are formed by networking together a large number of small entities to exploit the ubiquity of small, inexpensive, but potentially not reliable storage and computation units. The scope of this research spans from mathematical analysis and understanding of the barriers and limits, to developing fast and reliable algorithms to benefit from distributed architectures.