Ilina Bhaya-Grossman is a PhD candidate in Dr. Edward Chang’s lab at UCSF where she studies how the human brain processes language, with a particular focus on how brain activity is affected by cross linguistic differences. She studies this question by working with patient populations who have undergone an invasive implantation procedure as part of their clinical care. As a neuroscientist who interfaces directly with patients, Ilina is interested in the language we use to communicate science to human study participants and the public at large. To this end, she has been involved in several...
Cristina Ceballos studies artificial intelligence ethics and regulation, with a focus on government agencies and how they address questions of privacy and algorithmic bias. She has published on disparate impact in the administrative state (in the Yale Law Journal) and about Customs and Border Protection and its use of face recognition technology. During law school, she worked at the American Civil Liberties Union in the Immigrants’ Rights Project. As a postdoctoral fellow at the Kavli Center, Cristina will push forward on two main lines of research: first, examining how government agencies...
Juliana Chase participated in the inaugural fellows cohort as a 5th year PhD student in Behavioral & Systems Neuroscience at UC Berkeley. Juliana’s dissertation work employed experimental and computational techniques to better understand neural circuit differences in mouse models of autism. Throughout her PhD, Juliana has been interested in what happens when science leaves the lab and has been engaged with science policy and outreach organizations on campus. As a fellow, Juliana built on her experience as an organizer and science communicator to explore how scientists can partner with...
James Evershed uses formal tools to tackle problems in areas of ethics including our duties to help those in need, the right to privacy, population ethics, axiology, animal ethics, equality, and desert. James is passionate about working on real-world issues and was drawn to the Kavli Center by its commitment to helping technological advances be beneficial to everyone.
During the Kavli Ethics, Science, and the Public Graduate Fellowship James hopes to work on: (1) the implications of predictive algorithms for our privacy; (2) whether the control problem for artificial intelligence...
Chad Harper is a PhD candidate in Physics at the University of California, Berkeley, with a research focus on complex network dynamics and biological computation. Chad’s work spans multiple fields, from computational neuroscience and category theory to machine learning theory and bioethics, driven by a commitment to ethical, analytically-driven decision-making. His recent collaborations with Stanford’s Currie Lab explore ethical frameworks for organ transplant allocation, addressing social disparities in wait times and outcomes. Previously, Chad applied interdisciplinary analysis as a data...
Jen Holmberg is a Neuroscience PhD student conducting psilocybin research at UC Berkeley with the Center for the Science of Psychedelics (co-advised by Professors Jack Gallant and Michael Silver). Jen’s research is focused on understanding the brain mechanisms that mediate the psychedelic experience. Specifically, Jen uses fMRI, naturalistic stimuli, and computational models to investigate how psilocybin affects visual information processing in the brain during the acute drug experience.
In recent years, psychedelics have made a significant resurgence in public discourse, primarily...
Colin Hoy is a neuroscientist working as a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Neurology Department of the University of California, San Francisco, where he studies the neural basis of self-control and decision-making to understand cognitive and emotional symptoms in neuropsychiatric disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease and depression. His neuroscience research combines computational models of behavior with brain recordings and stimulation from implanted neural devices to identify and modulate the neural circuits and signals that help control behavior in pursuit of goals. Colin’s long-term goal...
From the very start, the development of the human brain is coordinated by highly specialized gene expression patterns that continue to change not only in prenatal, childhood, or adolescent stages, but also well into adulthood. Leana King's thesis work in the Cognitive Neuroanatomy Lab (P.I. Kevin Weiner) aims to examine this dynamic relationship between gene expression and brain development. As a 4th year PhD student, King's interest in the field of genetics has also grown. From starting out in perceptual and computational neuroscience to now relating development and neuroanatomy to...
Adriano Mannino's research interests are in normative ethics, decision theory, political theory, and applied ethics, especially AI ethics and policy. His Ph.D. dissertation, "Playing Dice with Lives: An Essay on Aggregation, Rights, and Automation," examines the moral "numbers problem" through the lenses of moral philosophy, decision theory, and social choice. In other academic and practical work (as a social entrepreneur and policy consultant), Mannino has dealt with issues including climate change and collective action, animal ethics and politics, public health and medical resource...
Before returning to academia, Dorna Mohaghegh practiced intellectual property law in New York. Dorna was a senior associate at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, a boutique law firm primarily serving the advertising and entertainment industries, and an associate with Willkie Farr & Gallagher, where she advised private equity investors in the technology sector. Dorna received her J.D. from NYU Law in 2014, where she was an Associate Editor for the Journal of Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law and a research assistant for Dean Emeritus Richard L. Revesz. Dorna received her BA in...
