Staff
Meet your instructors and faculty sponsors!
Instructors
Ben Finander
benjamin_finander@g.harvard.edu
I am a second year PhD student in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program at Harvard, doing my thesis in Chris A. Walsh’s lab at Boston Children’s Hospital. I joined the MAHPING Pedagogy Fellows because I am interested in centering my career around science education.
Brittany Bush
I am a 5th year PhD in Biomedical Sciences and MS in Clinical Research candidate in the Department of Neurobiology at Morehouse School of Medicine. My research focuses on the relationship between sleep and the maladaptive response to social stress in amouse model. I joined the MAHPING Pedadogy Fellows because I aim to have a career in academic research and become a tenured professor.
Jackie Lin
I’m a 5th year MD/PhD student (3rd year PhD student in the Department of Microbiology, Biochemistry, and Immunology) at Morehouse School of Medicine. My research investigates Staphylococcus aureus infections in children through integrating individual-level, place-based, and molecular risk factors using spatial-statistical modeling.
Lauren Miner
I am a 4th year PhD student in the Harvard Program in Neuroscience in the lab of Michael Crickmore. I use Drosophila as a model organism to study motivation. Specifically, I’m interested in how motivation arises and declines over the course of a single instance of behavior and in the long term as the animal becomes satiated after many instances of behavior.
Lucy Lai
I’m a 5th year PhD student in the Harvard Program in Neuroscience. My research in the Gershman lab focuses on how humans learn and make decisions under limited cognitive resources. I love teaching and mentoring students at Harvard College as a Resident Tutor and through science outreach programs like HPREP. The MAHPING Pedagogy Fellows program has been the perfect way to further my interests in collaborative teaching!
Mikaili Abdullah
I’m a 4th year PhD student at Morehouse School of Medicine. My research revolves around the cell biology of prostate cancer. I have always had a love for teaching. As the son of parents and grandparents in higher education, I guess it was only natural. The MAPHING Pedagogy Fellows program has come along and filled an important gap in my professional journey. Following the completion of my degree, I plan on pursuing a career in science communication as well as developing myself as a science educator in both higher education and in cyberspace.
Rachel Swope
I’m a 2nd year PhD student in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences program at Harvard Medical School. In the Heiman lab, I study how cells in the C. elegans nervous system get and maintain their shape.
Faculty Sponsors
Morris Beneviste
I’m a Professor of Neurobiology at Morehouse School of Medicine as well as the Director of the MSM BS/MS Program in Neuroscience. My laboratory is focused on elucidating functional changes in signaling and circuitry in different parts of the brain as a result of normal aging, or as a result of neuropsychiatric disease such as depression or neurological disease such as epilepsy.
Tari Tan
I’m a Lecturer on Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School and the Associate Director of the Harvard PhD Program in Neuroscience. I am deeply committed to making the field of neuroscience more diverse, equitable and inclusive through educational offerings spanning multiple career stages. I co-direct the Morehouse and Harvard Partnership in Neuroscience Growth (MAHPING) initiative and the Program in Neuroscience Post-baccalaureate program (PiNBAC) at Harvard, and I teach diverse student populations spanning high school through graduate and medical students.