Postdocs/Research Professors
Cherif Boudaba, PhD
Cherif was a Postdoc and Research Assistant Professor in the Tasker lab for 20+ years and then as a Professor of Practice in the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology for several more years prior to retiring. He was with the Tasker lab through generations of students and postdocs and saw Tasker faithfully through multiple stages of his research career.
Shi Di, PhD
Shi was a Postdoc and Research Assistant Professor in the Tasker lab for over 20 years, serving as the cornerstone of the lab and lab maternal figure for that time. She retired in 2020, just prior to the COVID pandemic, and has been enjoying her electrophysiology-free life with her husband Lou in the New Orleans suburbs. She has one son, Michael, who is a medical doctor in the Boston area.
Alier Franco, PhD, CNIM
Alier was a postdoc in the Tasker lab from 2005 to 2010, and currently holds the position of Clinical Manager at SpecialtyCare, a neurophysiological monitoring company in Philadelphia, PA.
Alexander Komendantov, PhD
Alexander was a Postdoc in the Tasker lab from 2001-2005, and is currently a Research Assistant Professor in the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA.
David Linn, PhD
David was a Postdoc in the Tasker lab from 1997 to 2000, and is currently Associate Professor at Grand Valley State University in Michigan.
Jennifer Rainville, PhD
Jen got her PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology at Tulane under the supervision of Nandini Vasudevan, and then spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow in the Tasker lab in 2015-2016. She worked as a postdoc with Georgia Hodes at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg from 2016 to 2020, and recently started her new position as Collegiate Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech.
Ion Razvan Popescu, PhD
Raz was a Postdoc and Research Assistant Professor in the Tasker lab for several years. He is currently a Research Professor in the laboratory of Ricardo Mostany at the Tulane Health Science Center.
Tom Stuart, PhD
Tom was a Postdoc in the Tasker lab from 2004 to 2006. He currently works in the New Orleans area as Director of the Beacon Group, a Management Consulting Company.
Andrea Zsombok, PhD
Andrea spent a year in the Tasker lab as a postdoc before moving to Kentucky with her soon-to-be husband, Andrei Derbenev, where they both worked as postdocs with Bret Smith. She is now Associate Professor in the Department of Physiology at the Tulane Medical School.
Graduate Students
Chun “Cherry” Chen, PhD
“After graduating from Tasker lab, I moved to the university of California, San Francisco to continue my research as a postdoctoral scholar. I’m focusing on the cortical interneuron related network dysfunction underlying the pathology of the Alzheimer’s disease using electrophysiology techniques both in vivo and in vitro.”
Shabrine Daftary, PhD
Shabrine earned her PhD in the Tasker lab in 1998 and did postdoc stints in Austin and Boston. She is currently a Research Associate at Tufts University in Boston.
Andras Fancsik, MD, PhD
Andras earned his MD in 1993 at the University of Pecs School of Medicine and his PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology in 1999 working in the Tasker lab. After holding multiple positions in the company, he is currently an Enterprise Data Strategist at Deloitte Consulting in Portland, OR.
Juhee Haam, PhD
Juhee currently works as a Research Fellow at National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in Research Triangle Park, NC, which is one of the National Institutes of health (NIH) institutes. Juhee's research focuses on understanding of the distinct memory formation processes encoding and consolidation using electrophysiological and optical recordings. Juhee's current research is funded by the NIH Intramural Research Program.
Christina Harris, PhD
Christina earned her PhD in the Tasker lab in 2012. She is currently head of the Sample Management Department of Eurofins Pharma Bioanalytical Services in the St. Louis area.
Tia Hexom, PhD
Tia earned her PhD in the Tasker lab in 2012 and, after doing a postdoc at the Salk Institute, she is currently VP of Scientific Affairs at SiO2 Medical Products in San Diego.
Zhiying “Ying” Jiang, PhD
Zhiying Jiang is a postdoc at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Her current research interest is in dissecting neurocircuitry involved in stress responses and energy homeostasis.
Jason Luther, PhD
Jason earned his PhD in 1999 and after postdoctoral and Research Assistant positions at Harvard and Brandeis, he is currently working as a Scientist at Amgen in Quicy, MA.
Renato Malcher-Lopes, PhD
Renato earned his PhD in the Tasker lab in 2005 and is currently Professor of Physiological Sciences at the University of Brasilia in Brazil.
Jebun Nahar, PhD
Jebun got her PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology in 2008 and, after conducting a postdoc in St. Louis, she is currently raising her family on the Mississippi gulf coast.
Laura Schrader, PhD
Laura earned her PhD in the Tasker lab in 1997 and, after postdocs at Baylor with Michael Friedlander and University of Alabama with David Sweatt, she is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology at Tulane University.
Katalin “Kati” Smith, PhD
Kati was my lab manager and a student for several formative years of the lab before moving to Kentucky, where she earned her PhD in neuroscience. She is currently Lab Manager in the laboratory of Bret Smith at the University of Kentucky Medical School.
Kriszta Szabo
Kriszta joined the Tasker lab as a Technician right out of high school in Pecs, Hungary, and was the lab tech and student for the first several years after the lab was opened in the early 90’s. She went on to a clinical psychology graduate program in Chicago. She died of cancer at a very young age, way too young. We still miss her very much.
Sen Wang, MS
Sen went into computational neuroscience and is currently working at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
Grant Weiss, PhD
Grant is currently a postdoc at Tufts University with a Tasker Lab collaborator, Jaime Maguire. There he is studying the effects of stress and CRH on network communications in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) by looking for changes in BLA oscillations and anxiety-like behavior.
Feng-Ju “Eddie” Weng, PhD
Eddie earned his PhD in 2009 and is currently a Research Scientist working in the laboratory of Mark Bear at MIT.
Ning Wu, MD, PhD
Ning earned her PhD in 2009 and following a medical residency at Penn State University, she is currently a practicing physician in Virginia.
Undergraduate
John “J.C.” Begley
JC successfully defended his honors thesis investigating the dynamics of the GABA reversal potential in vasopressin-releasing magnocellular neurons in the paraventricular and the supraoptic nuclei by studying the trafficking of chloride cotransporters. He plans to integrate neuroscience, pathology, and the gut microbiome as he pursues his PhD abroad.
