Leslie Sibener, Ph.D.

Leslie Sibener is a postdoctoral fellow in Priya Rajasethupathy’s lab at Rockefeller University. She earned her Ph.D. in neurobiology and behavior at Columbia University with Dr. Rui Costa, and her B.S. in neuroscience and B.A. in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University. Leslie is interested in studying why specific memories are selected for long term storage, while others are forgotten.

During her doctoral studies, Leslie investigated the neural mechanisms underlying the learning of skilled motor action. Her work focused on how the thalamus, an often overlooked motor area of the brain, contributes to the learning and refinement reaching actions in mice. Currently, her postdoctoral research focuses on how the saliency of events is reported to memory centers of the brain, and how that saliency gates the selection of memories for long term storage. During her graduate studies at Columbia, Leslie was awarded with the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. In the broader scientific community, she has worked closely with groups dedicated to transparent scientific communication, advocacy and education, such as Stories of Women in Neuroscience, BioBus and co-founded Scientist on the Subway.