people

Ishmail Abdus-Saboor

Associate Professor (tenured), Columbia Dpt. of Biological Sciences
Freeman Hrabowski Scholar, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Principal Investigator, Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute

Ph.D., Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Pennsylvania
B.S., Animal Science, North Carolina A&T State University

curriculum vitae

Yasumi Nakayama

Title: HHMI Lab Manager II

B.A. in Biological Sciences, Rutgers University

yn2502 [at] columbia.edu

Postdocs

Sasha Fulton

Title: HHMI Hannah Gray Fellow

PhD: Ian Maze Lab, Mount Sinai Medicine/HHMI
M.A., Hunter College
B.A., Columbia University

slf2127 [at] columbia.edu

Yuki Haba

Title: Leon Levy Scholar in Neuroscience

PhD: Lindy McBride Lab, Princeton University
M.A., Columbia University
B.A., Tokyo University

yh2778 [at] columbia.edu

Aleksander Kaplan

Title: Postdoctoral Fellow

PhD: Hagai Bergman Lab, Hebrew University
B.S., University of Maryland Baltimore County

ak5200 [at] columbia.edu

Briana Nixon

Title: HHMI-LSRF Fellow

PhD: Ming Li Lab, Weill Cornell Medicine
B.S., Wesleyan University

bn2369 [at] columbia.edu

Anastasia-Maria Zavitsanou

Title: Simons Junior Fellow

PhD: Sergei Koralov & Thales Papagiannakopoulos Labs, NYU
B.S., Imperial College London

az2764 [at] columbia.edu

Anna Zhukovskaya

Title: Postdoctoral Fellow

PhD: Ilana Witten Lab, Princeton/HHMI
B.S., University of Pennsylvania

az2171 [at] columbia.edu

Graduate students (not taking rotation students for 2025-2026)

Brittany Bistis

Title: Biological Sciences PhD student

B.S., Yale University
bb2977 [at] columbia.edu

William Foster

Title: Neurobiology and Behavior PhD student

B.S., Haverford College
wf2284 [at] columbia.edu

Preston Sheng

Title: Biological Sciences PhD student

B.S., Emory University
ss6573 [at] columbia.edu

Isabella Succi

Title: Biological Sciences PhD student

B.S., St. Joseph’s University
is2687 [at] columbia.edu

Wesley Yu-Young Tsai

Title: Biological Sciences PhD student

B.S., Johns Hopkins University
yt2882 [at] columbia.edu

Viviana Vinci

Title: Biological Sciences PhD student

M.S., ETH Zurich
B.S., Northeastern University
vv2373 [at] columbia.edu

Tate Yawitz

Title: Neurobiology and Behavior PhD student

M.S., LMU Munich
B.S., University of Pittsburgh
tay2104 [at] columbia.edu

Staff

Simon Toney

Title: Research technician

B.S., Columbia University
sd3525 [at] columbia.edu

Undergraduate students

Carolina Barbolla

cb3803 [at] columbia.edu

Erin Yoo

ey2424 [at] columbia.edu