Andrew M. Leifer, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of physics and neuroscience at Princeton University. He studied physics and political science at Stanford University and earned his Ph.D. in biophysics under the guidance of Professor Aravi Samuel at Harvard University in 2012. He then received a Lewis Sigler Fellowship to form his own independent research group at Princeton University. In 2016 Leifer joined the faculty at Princeton as an assistant professor. His laboratory employs novel optical tools to probe brain-wide neural dynamics at cellular resolution that underly behavior in the nematode C. elegans. His research ultimately seeks a quantitative understanding of the interplay between neural dynamics, neural connectivity, and animal behavior. He is the recipient of the National Science Foundation’s CAREER award and the National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award.
Current Project: Neural Dynamics of a Multi-timescale Social Behavior
Past Project: Whole brain calcium imaging in freely behaving nematodes