Congratulations to the Master’s graduates of the Graduate Program in Neuroscience (GPN), fall class of 2025! 10 trainees are graduating this week and to celebrate, we asked them to share some of their favourite memories during their time at UBC, their future plans and advice for future students.
Julian Becerra Leon, MSc
Supervisor: Sophia Frangou
Thesis title: Mapping Brain Maturation in Resilient Offspring with Familial Risk Using HYDRA and Longitudinal Psychopathology
Summary of research: Children of parents with mental health disorders are at higher risk for later emotional and behavioural problems, but many do well. We tracked 941 high-risk and 1,446 control children aged 9–10 with brain imaging and three years of symptom follow-up. Using machine-learning clustering, we found three neurodevelopmental profiles in high-risk youth: delayed brain maturation with rising internalizing symptoms, atypical maturation reflecting hidden vulnerability, and accelerated maturation linked to resilience. These profiles related differently to socioeconomic adversity and social support, suggesting brain-based markers that could help identify risk early and guide tailored prevention.
What’s a skill you gained during grad school that you’ll carry forward in your future career? Time and project management.
What is your favourite UBC/GPN memory or something that you’ll miss the most about UBC? Meeting friends and colleagues at the DMCBH and talking about life and work.
What’s next for you and what excites you most about that next step? There are so many emerging challenges where rigorous science can meaningfully shape practice, and I’m excited to take the next step in that direction.
Do you have any advice for future students? Stay curious, and trust that you’re capable of tackling challenges that feel big at first.
Jessica Chalissery, MSc
Supervisor: Miriam Spering
Thesis title: Human eye movements as a readout of audiovisual integration
Summary of research: Our brains often combine multiple sensory signals from a single object to form a unified percept – a process known as multisensory integration. This project studied how people move their eyes towards visual, auditory, or combined audiovisual objects in different spatial and timing conditions. We found that responses to audiovisual signals were faster than predicted by models assuming the sensory systems act independently, suggesting that the brain was integrating sensory information.
What’s a skill you gained during grad school that you’ll carry forward in your future career? I think the most important life skill I learned was how to persevere even amidst setbacks. In research, there are always going to be a million little things that go wrong, and I had to learn how to lean into those setbacks and continue moving forward, or else the project would have been dead in the water and my thesis would have been much less interesting than it currently is.
What is your favourite UBC/GPN memory or something that you’ll miss the most about UBC? I’ll miss my lab mates! Of course we can still meet up, but it’s not the same as seeing them every day. Lab socials were elite.
What’s next for you and what excites you most about that next step? I’m planning on branching out into industry, ideally in a role relating to research coordination. It feels like a natural next step since it bridges my experience with academic research with my interest in seeing science applied in real-world settings.
Do you have any advice for future students? Take your time with the literature review and make sure you truly understand your thesis topic before finalizing the details. A solid grasp of the existing research will make your experiments and analysis much smoother and help you anticipate potential issues early on.
Ninon Freidel, MSc
Supervisor: Clare Beasley
Thesis title: Complement Regulators Expression in the Postmortem Prefrontal Cortex of Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder
Summary of research: While most complement regulators showed no differences between patients and controls, one regulator (SEZ6) was reduced in schizophrenia, and correlations between complement regulators and synaptic markers suggest that disrupted immune-synapse interactions may contribute to both disorders.
What’s a skill you gained during grad school that you’ll carry forward in your future career? During grad school, I learned how to translate complex and often sensitive neuroscience data into clear, accessible explanations for people outside the lab (community partners, family, friends). This skill is one that will definitely help me as a medical student and beyond.
What is your favourite UBC/GPN memory or something that you’ll miss the most about UBC? What I’ll miss the most about UBC is being able to sneak away to Whistler to ski when I know a big snow drop is coming!
What’s next for you and what excites you most about that next step? I’ve just begun my first year of medical school at Queen’s and am especially excited to shadow physicians, explore different specialties and interact with patients.
Do you have any advice for future students? I would say to stubbornly protect your curiosity and your boundaries and to say yes to things that genuinely excite you, not that you feel like you “should” do.
Sangeetha Kasturi, MSc
Supervisor: Clare Beasley
Thesis title: Complement C1q in Psychiatric Disorder: Elucidating Correlations to Synaptic Pathology
Summary of research: The complement system, a major player in immune regulation, has been shown to play a vital role in normal brain development and homeostasis. It contributes to the regulation of neurogenesis, synaptic pruning, and plasticity. The goal of my thesis was to determine how dysfunction of this system, and in particular its initiating protein C1q, can impact the synaptic pathology of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
What’s a skill you gained during grad school that you’ll carry forward in your future career? Throughout my graduate degree, I had the opportunity to present my research to other members of the scientific community. Being able to take a complex topic and explain it to someone completely outside of my field who is not well-versed in the jargon of my subject is a truly important skill that I take forward with me. I hope to utilize this skill when disseminating science to the general public, helping to prevent misinformation of science and fear of medicine.
What is your favourite UBC/GPN memory or something that you’ll miss the most about UBC? I really enjoyed the Spring Gala held by the Neuroscience Trainee Association (NTA). The theme was “Gatsby’s Hideaway” and I had a fantastic time putting together an outfit reminiscent of the Jazz Age! All the events hosted by the NTA throughout the year provide the opportunity to interact with your peers and destress together while doing fun activities.
What’s next for you and what excites you most about that next step? Currently I have applied for medical school in Canada! It’s a bit of an arduous process, so I’m also hunting for a job as a research assistant while I await my application results. Regardless of the outcome, I am most excited to continue my journey in science in medicine and perhaps pivot to a different field of research involving more clinical patient interactions.
Do you have any advice for future students? The biggest lesson I’ve learned throughout my journey so far is that life is rarely a straight line. It can take you down paths you’ve never considered before and present you with opportunities to change your view of the world. Focus on reaching your dreams, but maybe keep an open mind along the way!
Annie Kim, MSc
Supervisor: Manu Madhav
Thesis title: Investigating age-related differences in spatial navigation behaviours using a novel virtual reality task: toward early markers of cognitive decline
Summary of research: My research focused on developing a new immersive virtual reality (VR) task to explore how spatial navigation behaviours change with healthy aging. Participants learned spatial layouts, followed paths, and pointed to landmarks within an interactive VR environment, allowing us to measure different aspects of spatial memory and orientation that often shift with aging and dementia. The broader goal of this work was to create a sensitive and accessible tool that could one day help identify early signs of cognitive decline, such as those seen in Alzheimer’s disease.
What’s a skill you gained during grad school that you’ll carry forward in your future career? One of the most valuable skills I’ve gained has been learning to advocate for myself. Whether it meant communicating my needs, setting boundaries, or asking for feedback and support, I’ve recognized that self-advocacy is essential for sustainable growth, both as a researcher and an individual. This has made me a more confident learner and helped me grow in ways that will continue to shape my journey well beyond grad school.
What is your favourite UBC/GPN memory or something that you’ll miss the most about UBC? My favourite memories are definitely the moments when the whole department came together—the DMCBH Research Retreat and Holiday Party being standout highlights. Those events built a real sense of community beyond just an academic setting, bringing trainees and faculty together to laugh, dance and celebrate. Singing to One Direction with my lab and the highly competitive Kahoot matches are memories I’ll never forget!
What’s next for you and what excites you most about that next step? I plan to pursue a career in supporting individuals and families affected by dementia. I’m excited to build on the theoretical foundations and research skills I’ve gained from my neuroscience graduate training and apply them in a more hands-on, patient-facing way.
Do you have any advice for future students? Graduate school comes with its fair share of challenges, but it’s important not to lose perspective along the way. Try to embrace the difficult moments and learn from them, because they’re often the ones that help you grow the most. Remember that your grad school experience is ultimately what you choose to make of it, so get involved, step outside your comfort zone, and connect with your peers and mentors. In the end, it’s the people you meet and the memories you create that make the journey truly meaningful!
Tatiana MacKeigan, MSc
Supervisor: Anthony Traboulsee and Clare Beasley
Thesis title: Investigating susceptibility to demyelination in an Ermin deficiency-based model of multiple sclerosis
Summary of research: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, central nervous system (CNS) disease involving damage to myelin, the protective sheaths covering nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. Ermin is specifically expressed in the myelin-producing cells that are compromised and degenerate in MS and genetic studies have previously linked it to the disease. To investigate the impact of Ermin loss on the response following myelin injury, I subjected mice to a commonly used model of MS demyelination and examined glial cell alterations and myelin markers to assess the extent of demyelination and potential pathways this protein is involved in.
What’s a skill you gained during grad school that you’ll carry forward in your future career? The greatest skill I gained in grad school was how to form and maintain relationships with other people. I learned how to find connections in my lab, grad student community, and the wider research community I was a part of, which created a positive, supportive environment that was paramount to my success as a grad student. I am grateful to be able to carry forward these connections and the skills I learned on how to integrate myself into my communities going forward.
What is your favourite UBC/GPN memory or something that you’ll miss the most about UBC? As a member of the NTA for my two years in the GPN, I am going to miss the social and academic events the most. The inaugural student research day that I co-organized was a proud moment of inspiration and connection, and something I will always look fondly back on.
What’s next for you and what excites you most about that next step? Since finishing my thesis, I have started a position at the LSI working as a research assistant for the new Experimental Modelling Facility (EMF), where I focus on humanized animal models for disease. I am most excited about the opportunity to take what I learned about research in grad school and apply my knowledge to advocacy efforts for the multiple sclerosis community, which has a special place in my heart.
Do you have any advice for future students? Talk to your peers, make friends and make memories. Don’t take time for granted, because it’ll be over before you know it.
Christine Seo, MSc
Supervisor: Teresa Liu-Ambrose
Thesis title: The effect of resistance training on regional brain volumes in older adults with subcortical ischemic vascular impairment
Summary of research: For my thesis, I tested whether resistance exercises (i.e., exercises that aim to improve muscle strength) improved the sizes of the parts of the brain involved in memory and thinking abilities for people with cerebral small vessel disease (i.e., condition that is characterized by damage to the smaller blood vessels) who have impaired memory and thinking abilities. The results of my thesis showed that while completing resistance exercises twice a week for one year did not improve the sizes of these regions, the changes in the sizes of these regions over the 12 months were related to changes in memory and thinking abilities.
What’s a skill you gained during grad school that you’ll carry forward in your future career? One very valuable skill that I gained during grad school is how to write an effective research proposal. Although this has most direct applications to a career in research and science, I think this will be beneficial in any instance where I have to communicate information efficiently and persuasively.
What is your favourite UBC/GPN memory or something that you’ll miss the most about UBC? My favourite memories are from the annual DMCBH Christmas party and the Neuroscience Trainee Association’s Year-end Gala! These were an amazing opportunity to meet with faculty, staff and fellow students in the DMCBH and have a bit of fun to celebrate some special times of the year.
What’s next for you and what excites you most about that next step? For now, I am working as a research and clinic coordinator still within my supervisor, Dr. Teresa Liu-Ambrose’s lab. I have applied to some professional degree programs across the country, but I do one day hope to complete a PhD and I am very excited to further my studies in the future!
Do you have any advice for future students? One of the biggest pieces of advice that I would like to give future students of the GPN (and other degree programs as well) is to get involved in your trainee/students’ associations! I truly believe that getting involved in the NTA during my MSc enriched my graduate school experience significantly. It is a great opportunity to meet great people and learn a lot more about your program.
Haozong Zeng, MSc
Supervisor: Tim Murphy
Thesis title: PyMouse Lifter: Real Time 3-D Pose Estimation for Mice with Only 2-D Annotation Via Data Synthesis
Summary of research: This thesis introduces PyMouse Lifter, a tool that turns simple top-down videos of mice into detailed 3D motion data—using just a single normal camera. It works by combining a realistic 3D mouse model, a depth estimation algorithm, and a method for detecting body points. With only a few manually labeled frames, it can generate synthetic training data that mimics real lab environments.
What’s a skill you gained during grad school that you’ll carry forward in your future career? I believe the most important skill I gained in my graduate training was the ability to proactively seek innovative ways to solve problems and, in the process, learn from and absorb knowledge from different fields.
What is your favourite UBC/GPN memory or something that you’ll miss the most about UBC? One of the most meaningful skills I gained during grad school wasn’t purely academic—it was learning how to build a balanced, fulfilling life alongside demanding research. At UBC, I met amazing friends and developed new interests outside the lab, like 3D animation and running Call of Cthulhu TRPG campaigns.
What’s next for you and what excites you most about that next step? I’ll be heading to EPFL to pursue my PhD, and I’m really excited about the chance to contribute to cutting-edge scientific research while experiencing a completely new environment.
Do you have any advice for future students? At UBC, I was fortunate to meet so many friendly, talented, and insightful professors, students, and visiting scholars—many of my best ideas emerged from conversations with them. Stay curious, talk to people, and don’t be afraid to explore beyond your immediate research topic.
Ava Grier, MSc
Supervisor: Donna Lang
Thesis title: Investigating retinal microvasculature and morphological health and its relation to brain health during and after COVID-19 recovery
Mojan Izadkhah, MSc
Supervisor: Ipek Oruc
Thesis title: Predicting eye movement direction from pre-saccadic EEG: a deep learning and explainable AI approach to investigating the neural basis of motor planning
