Elisa Galliano
She/Her/Dr – Associate Professor & Lab handyperson 🇮🇹
- BSc Biology, MSc Neurobiology @ University of Pavia (IT), D’Angelo Lab
- PhD Neuroscience @ Erasmus University Rotterdam (NL), De Zeeuw Lab
- Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow @ King’s College London (UK) and Harvard University (USA) in the Grubb and Murthy labs
Who is Elisa? Click here to read a short profile written by Ailie and/or to browse her CV
eg542 [at] cam.ac.uk / @elisagalliano.bsky.social
Chloé Guillaume
She/Her/Dr – Junior Research Fellow 🇫🇷
- BSc Life Sciences @ University of Nantes
- MSc Neuroscience @ University of Strasbourg, ICube Lab
- PhD Neuroscience @ Nantes, Parnet Lab, & Alicante, Reig Lab
Chloé is the lab’s first postdoctoral researcher, who joined us from France in April 2023. She leads our behavioural experiments and makes full use of her electrophysiology and optogenetics expertise to investigate what dopaminergic cells in the olfactory bulb actually do. In 2025, she was awarded a Junior Research Fellowship at Homerton College to expand on this work within our lab. Chloé is passionate about art and travelling, she speaks a ridiculous number of languages (5!), and loves teaching and interacting with the public in any of said languages. When she first joined us, she was less enthusiastic about electronics and setup development, but to get her very cool setup running, she’s steadily becoming an expert in that too (she had no choice, really…). Amusingly, Chloé was the first member of our lab to stand taller than 1.60 m, a fact that caused great excitement, as we could finally reach the elusive items on the high shelves without resorting to creative climbing solutions.
Click here to read more about Chloe and to browse her CV
cg829 [at] cam.ac.uk / @chloeg-neuro.bsky.social
Sonu Peedikayil-Kurien
He/Him/Dr – Postdoctoral research associate 🇮🇳
- B.Sc. in Chemistry, Zoology, Biotechnology / M.Sc. in Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine
- Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience @ Weizmann Institute (IL), Oren-Suissa Lab
Sonu is our second postdoc, joining the lab in March 2025. He has a background in zoology and a PhD in invertebrate chemosensory behaviour and imaging, with a strong side of genetics and molecular biology. It’s mostly the genetics/mol bio jargon that loses the rest of us (the heathens), but we’re confident he’ll educate us in time.He’s curious about nearly everything the lab does: dopamine, adult neurogenesis, innate behaviour, plasticity – you name it. He’s already collaborating widely, enriching existing projects, developing his own, and leading the setup of our in vivo imaging system with spatial light modulation (big toys incoming). Outside the lab, Sonu is equally eclectic, into vertical gardening, board games, philosophy, ethology, comparative neuroscience, and, likely above all, music.
sp225 [at] cam.ac.uk
Ailie McWhinnie
She/Her – PhD student 🏴
- BSc Biological Sciences @ University of Edinburgh (UK)
- Intercalated year at Eli Lilly (UK)
- Since October 2021 PhD in Neuroscience funded by the PDN-Wolfson Scholarship
Ailie is fascinated by all things dopamine, and since October 2021 she has been working hard to understand how dopaminergic neurons in the olfacory bulb (including the regenerating ones!) are wired up in the circuit. Since Li’s graduation, she has officially taken on the mantle of senior PhD student and longest-serving lab member, and is now the only one who truly knows where everything is (though, to be fair, this isn’t exactly new: Li never knew where anything was anyway). A proud Scot and a popular guest at many Burns Night celebration, she has yet to adjust to the sweltering English summers (23 °C? Utter madness!). Ailie edits blogs and science magazines, does lots of outreach, and is the ECR representative for Cambridge Neuroscience. Never knowingly caught without a pair of dungarees in her immediate vicinity, and ever active in making new dungarees proselytes, her BBF in the lab is a fluffy water-bottle-bear-thing called Huxley.
agm72 [at] cam.ac.uk / @AilieMcwhinnie @ailiemcwhinnie.bsky.social
Sana Gadiwalla
She/Her – PhD student 🇺🇸
- BSc in Biology @ University of Washington, Seattle (USA)
- MSc in Neuroscience @ University of Strasbourg (FR)
- SinceOctober 2021 collaborative PhD in Neuroscience at Háskóli Islands (Reykjavík, Iceland) in the Petersen lab and with us here in Cambridge
Sana is interested in all things plasticity, especially in the mechanisms that involve modulation of action potential firing. Officially based in Iceland, she spent the first nine months of her PhD in Cambridge to learn to patch mitral and tufted cells, to then went on to set up the physiology rig in Reykjavík and work on genetic models of intrinsic plasticity deficits – but she still attendes all our lab meetings remotely, and visits as much as possible. Sana is is our resident globetrotter: originally from Seattle, she has spent time in Canada and France before coming to Cambridge for an exchance programme as part of her Masters, and the rest is history. She is a bookworm and AMAZING cook and baker, and to Elisa’s delight, she is ignoring Ailie’s pleas and refusing to buy dungarees. Our former neighbour Steve Edgley gifted her his lab mascot, a bunny called Sybil, so she too has a fluffy toy littering the office (sigh).
sg965 [at] cam.ac.uk / @SanaGadiwalla @neurosana.bsky.social
Harin Wijayathunga
He/Him – PhD Student 🏴🇱🇰
- BMedSci (Hons) – Neuroscience @ University of Edinburgh (UK)
- MPhil in Basic and Translational Neuroscience @ University of Cambridge (UK) in our lab, Harding and Cambridge Trust funded
- Since October 2024 PhD in Neuroscience funded by the Jesus College Valluri-Rao Scholarship
Harin started off in medicine at Edinburgh, but a project on learning and memory in rats with Richard Morris swept him into the world of neuroscience, and he never looked back. After joining our lab as an MPhil BTN student, he officially graduated to PhD status and now holds the title of Li’s data heir—free from her “supervision” but still tangled in her legacy. Originally hooked on LTP and Hebb, he’s now being persistently nudged toward the wonders of adaptive and structural plasticity, though his heart still beats for anything related to learning and memory consolidation. Hailing from Leeds, with a Sri Lankan family heritage (which makes lunchtime extra exciting!), Harin spends his days hunting for AISes and exposing mice to odors inside teaballs like the proper Englishman he is. Outside the lab, he’s perpetually entangled in his eclectic hobbies: surrealist art, wine tasting, and DJing (rumor has it, his cheesy tunes still offend Elisa’s sensibilities). Not one to join the dungarees trend, Harin also shares a birthday with Li, which once made him her instant favorite.
hdw32 [at] cam.ac.uk / @harinw.bsky.social
Connor Doyle
He/Him – PhD Student 🏴
- BA Hons in Biological Natural Sciences @ University of Cambridge (UK), Roberts lab
- MPhil in Basic and Translational Neuroscience @ University of Cambridge (UK), Davis lab
- Research Assistant in the Sohoglu’s Auditory Cognition Group, Unversity of Sussex
- Since October 2024 PhD in Neuroscience funded by a Harding Trust Scholarship
Connor is our pheromone guy—also dubbed “piss guy” because we’re unrepentant juveniles. Though he’s joined officially in 2024, he feels like a longtime fixture, having done his undergrad in Cambridge. After some fascinating research placements with primates, focusing on cognition, behavior, and sensory processing, he decided to switch gears and work with rodents. His first official lab event? The ISOT conference in Iceland—before he even started working here, proving his priorities are on point. He hasn’t donned dungarees yet, shares a passion for beans on toast with Harin, and loves asking people to rank carbs (pasta, rice, bread, potatoes) as his icebreaker. He’ll fit right in.
cd712 [at] cam.ac.uk / @connordoyle.bsky.social
Tess Stanley
She/Her – PhD student 🇺🇸
- Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience @ Lafayette College (USA), Stawicki lab, and Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy
- Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory (USA) Undergraduate Research Program, Cheadle lab
- King’s College London (UK) semester abroad
- Since October 2025 PhD in Neuroscience funded by a Gates Trust Scholarship
Tess is our newest PhD student, joining us from New York State with a prestigious Gates-funded four-year programme. She completed her undergraduate studies at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, where she made the Dean’s List for six semesters, and spent a semester abroad at King’s College London, where she got hooked on the UK (I mean, the weather here is top notch). Tess already has an extensive research portfolio, having worked on sensory physiology in the zebrafish auditory system and glial plasticity in the mouse hippocampus. She plans to combine these two strands for her PhD to investigate activity-dependent glial plasticity in the mouse olfactory bulb, and to convince the entire lab that glia >>> neurons (good luck with that). Expect thoughtful debates, infectious enthusiasm, and possibly a few impromptu radio-style broadcasts in between experiments, since she used to run the Lafayette student radio station.
tcs57 [at] cam.ac.uk / @tess-stanley.bsky.social
Pablo Fernández García
He/Him – Master Student 🇪🇸
- BSc in Psychology @ Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (ES), Aivar and Campo Labs
- Amgen Scholar @ Max Plank Institute Munich (DE), Klein Lab
- Erasmus+ Trainee @ ESPCI Paris (FR), Vetere Lab
- Since October 2025 MPhil in Basic and Translational Neuroscience @ University of Cambridge (UK)
Pablo joined the lab as a BTN MPhil student to work with Chloé on uncovering how dopaminergic neurons shape olfactory behaviour. His scientific roots are in the hippocampal, learning/memory, and engram fields, but he is currently being seduced by the beauty and experimental power of olfaction, a transition we’re delighted to witness once more (sounds a lot like Harin’s!).
Originally from Spain, Pablo brings an impressive amount of research experience to the table. In fact, he convinced us to take him on even without a formally advertised project for this taught programme: his intelligence, enthusiasm, and proactive spirit eventually wore us down. Outside the lab, Pablo is active in his college’s LGBTQ+ committee, loves going to drag shows and anything related to Rosalía, and while he shares a passion for camping with Ailie he has yet to be convinced to wear dungarees.
pf398[at] cam.ac.uk
Shloka Adluru
She/Her – Undergraduate Student 🏴
- BA Hons in Biological Natural Sciences @ University of Cambridge (UK)
Shloka is our newest member, diving into her final-year undergrad project with us and already proving she can hold her own in the lab. Originally from Manchester, she’s serious about karate, so don’t be fooled by her friendly smile: she could probably disarm you with a swift roundhouse kick. She’s been pestering Elisa to let her do an internship in the lab since the end of first year, after getting hooked on olfaction during her comparative sensory physiology lectures, but we never had the space. Impressively, she didn’t give up, and now she’s finally here. Shloka will be working with Harin on experience-dependent plasticity, and good luck to him, suddenly promoted from lab-mate to mentor. Hopefully it has been made clear that teaching neuroscience takes priority over covering surrealist art…
sa2202[at] cam.ac.uk
Edina Horvath-Gulacsi
She/Her – Lab manager & Senior Research Technician 🇭🇺
- BSc in Biological Sciences, University of Debrecen (HU)
- From 2013, Lab technician in oncohematology diagnostic, Budapest (HU)
- From 2019, Senior lab technician Sferruzzi-Perri Lab, PDN Cambridge (UK)
Edina joined us in October 2024 as our Lab Manager, Senior Laboratory Technician, and, let’s be honest, Elisa’s official savior (because we all know daily management isn’t Elisa’s strong suit). Originally from Debrecen, Hungary, where she earned her biology degree, Edina quickly discovered her true passion: being at the bench, doing experiments, helping others learn, and keeping the lab organized—music to our ears! She brings a wealth of experience from more traditional biological settings, having worked on blood and placenta research. Now, she’s thrilled to dive into the world of neuroscience (she nearly squealed with joy during her first brain surgery), and we can’t wait to teach her all about the brain while she shows us how to run a top-notch operation. She’ll be with us for at least six years (thank you, Wellcome Trust!), and we plan to spend that time admiring her stunning earring collection, learning about Hungarian soups (apparently, they have “bits” in them, unlike the smooth, watery stuff in England), and hopefully improving our table tennis skills—her husband’s a coach, and maybe we can convince him to give us a masterclass in exchange for food 😉
eg570 [at] cam.ac.uk / @edinagulacsi.bsky.social
Alumni
Li Huang
The lab’s first PhD student! (October 2020 – September 2024) → Regulatory Affairs PhD fellow at Vertex Pharmaceuticals
lh672 [at] cam.ac.uk / @lihuang.bsky.social / http://www.linkedin.com/in/li-huang-b271a642/
Rory Byrne
BBSRC DTP student in Cambridge rotating with Tim O’Leary and our lab
rb2053 [at] cam.ac.uk
Jieni Wang
Research Assistant 2021/22 and builder of our spectacular behavioural setup; sadly, a dungarees convert; about to start her fully-funded PhD at the Department of Engineering here in Cambridge.
jw2257 [at] cam.ac.uk / twitter @Jieni_W
Sam White
CPGS Postgraduate Student 2019/20 → private sector
Gaia Bianchini
Erasmus student from Regensburg 2018/19 → PhD with Flor Iacaruso @ Crick Institute
twitter @gaiagingam
Tessa Bienfait
Erasmus student from Rotterdam 2018/19 → medicine
Maggy Lau
MPhil by reserach student 2018/20, cosupervised by Sue Jones → consultancy
Galliano Lab @Cambridge_Uni 