Experience

Research

PhD Student, Coen & Barry Labs

Oct 2025 - Present

Conducting research under the supervision of Dr Pip Coen and Prof Caswell Barry at University College London. Utilising electrophysiology, optogenetics, and closed-loop VR to investigate where and how the brain combines auditory and visual information to build and navigate cognitive maps.

PhD Rotation Student, Coen Lab

Jul 2025 - Oct 2025

Rotation in Dr Pip Coen's lab at University College London. Designed a 3D-printable behavioural arena for tracking rodents as they explore an enriched environment. Confirmed that mice show stable, individualised traits in how they explore the environment.

PhD Rotation Student, Barry Lab

Apr 2025 - Jul 2025

Rotation in Prof Caswell Barry's lab at University College London. Developed a novel rate map-based generalised linear model (GLM) framework to classify egocentric and allocentric spatially tuned neurons from tetrode electrophysiology data. Developed a novel entropy-based adaptive learning-rate mechanism within a temporal difference learning framework to model successor representations during state-transition learning.

PhD Rotation Student, Ruediger Lab

Jan 2025 - Apr 2025

Rotation in Dr Sarah Ruediger's lab at University College London. Built a closed-loop VR behavioural assay and analysis pipeline for in-vivo 2-photon imaging experiments to characterise a novel norepinephrine sensor and investigate the role of norepinephrine as a prediction error signal in mouse V1.

Research Assistant, Hong Lab

Sep 2020 - Apr 2022

Conducted research under the supervision of Dr Soyon Hong at the UK Dementia Research Institute. Utilised immunohistochemistry and super-resolution microscopy (Airyscan, STED) to investigate what makes synapses vulnerable to elimination in mouse models of neurodegenerative disease.

Master's Research Student, Hong Lab

Jan 2020 - Sep 2020

Conducted research under the supervision of Dr Soyon Hong at University College London. Analysed synaptic proteomic datasets from human Alzheimer's disease (AD) and rodent AD-like brains to identify the proteomic signature of synapses vulnerable to loss. Constructed protein-protein interaction networks and applied clustering algorithms to identify functional modules and protein complexes altered in vulnerable synapses across different experimental paradigms.

Bachelor's Research Student, Sayers Lab

Sep 2017 - Apr 2018

Conducted research under the supervision of Prof Jon Sayers at The University of Sheffield. Identified inhibitors of the Haemophilus influenzae flap endonuclease (HiFEN). Utilised FRET IC50s to screen a large, small-molecule library for HiFEN inhibitors and thermal shift assays to identify HiFEN-binding molecules. Used in silico molecular docking to complement in vitro results.

Teaching

Neural Computation Seminar Tutor, UCL

December 2025

Delivered seminars for the Neural Computation: Models of Brain Function module (NEUR0016).

Postgraduate Teaching Assistant, UCL

February 2025 - March 2025

Postgraduate teaching assistant for the Clocks, Sleep and Biological Time module (CELL0004).

Psychobiology Seminar Tutor, University of Sussex

January 2024 - June 2024

Deliver seminars for the Psychobiology module (C8003) to undergraduate students studying Psychology. Topics covered: biology of the cell, neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, sensory and motor processing and integration, homeostasis, motivated behaviour, and evolutionary psychology.

Business English Tutor

June 2022 - June 2024

Teach Business English to Korean professionals and Academic Writing to Korean academics via the online Ringle platform. Promoted to 'Golden Star Tutor' for consistently receiving 5* student reviews. Awarded 'Tutor of the Month' (June 2023) out of 1500+ tutors.

Science Tutor

July 2022 - June 2023

Tutored Biochemistry, Biology, Neuroscience and Academic Writing to university students via the online Spires platform.

ESL Teacher

Mar 2019 - Oct 2019

Taught English to Chinese children (5-15 years old) via the online Whales English platform.

Education

Systems Neuroscience PhD

University College London, 2024 - Present

Clinical Neuroscience MSc, Distinction

University College London, 2019 - 2020

Medical Biochemistry BSc, First-Class Honours

The University of Sheffield, 2015 - 2018

Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Global Perspectives - A* A* A Distinction

King Edwards VI Grammar School, 2008 - 2015

Online Courses

CS50's Introduction to Computer Science (100+ hours)
Applied Machine Learning in Python (~31 hours)
Applied Plotting, Charting & Data Representation in Python (~24 hours)
Introduction to Data Science in Python (~34 hours)
Using Databases with Python (~14 hours)
Using Python to Access Web Data (~19 hours)
Python Data Structures (~19 hours)
Getting Started with Python (~19 hours)
Introduction to Python Programming (150+ hours)

Awards

Dean's List

University College London, 2020

Awarded a position on the Dean's List for graduating with the second-highest grade (89%) in the year.

Ede and Ravenscroft Prize

The University of Sheffield, 2016

Awarded the Ede and Ravenscroft Prize (£500) for being the highest performing student across the Faculty of Science.

Foundation Award for Outstanding A Level Results

King Edwards VI Grammar School, 2015

Awarded individual commendation awards for Biology, Chemistry, and Physics in the final year of A levels, as well as the Foundation Award for Outstanding A Level Results.

Funding

Optical Biology Conference 2026 (£9,000)

Wellcome Trust/Nikon, 2026

Received funding to organise and run a three-day Optical Biology conference at NTNU, Trondheim, in collaboration with PhD students at UCL, NTNU, and VIB-KU Leuven.

Bogue Fellowship (£10,000)

University College London, 2025

Awarded the Bogue Fellowship to attend a 6-week intensive training course on 'Neural Systems & Behaviour' at the Marine Biological Laboratory (Woods Hole, USA).

Optical Biology Conference 2025 (£6,000)

Wellcome Trust, 2025

Received funding to organise and run a three-day Optical Biology conference at VIB-KU Leuven, in collaboration with PhD students at UCL and VIB-KU Leuven.

Wellcome Trust 4-Year PhD Studentship (£250,000)

Wellcome Trust, 2024

Awarded the Wellcome Trust 4-Year PhD Studentship in Optical Biology.

UK DRI Collaborative Proteomics Grant (£15,000)

UK Dementia Research Institute, 2021

Awarded the UK DRI Collaborative Proteomics Grant for an application I wrote alongside Dr Soyon Hong and Prof Dario Alessi, in which we proposed using proteomics to identify synaptic targets of complement protein C1q in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease.

Publications

Next-generation multicolor indicators for in vivo imaging of norepinephrine.

Nature Methods, 2026

Lu Rohner V*, Curreli S*, Lamothe-Molina PJ*, Kagiampaki Z*, Yee GA, Nardin C, Eschholz L, Dieter A, Foustoukos G, Milanese P, Banterle L, Childs T, Canziani A, Dernic J, Ravott L, Bhat MA, Sönmez L, Wasielewski LM, Ziebarth T, Molnar MI, Huan G, Masseck OA, Weber B, Reine A, Lüthi A, Ford CP, Wiegert JS, Ruediger S, Fellin T, Patriarchi T.

Perivascular cells induce microglial phagocytic states and synaptic engulfment via SPP1 in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease.

Nature Neuroscience, 2023

De Schepper S, Ge JZ, Crowley G, Ferreira LSS, Garceau D, Toomey CE, Sokolova D, Rueda-Carrasco J, Shin SH, Kim JS, Childs T, Lashley T, Burden JJ, Sasner M, Frigerio CS, Jung S and Hong S.

Microglia-synapse engulfment via PtdSer-TREM2 ameliorates neuronal hyperactivity in Alzheimer's disease models.

EMBO, 2023

Rueda-Carrasco J*, Sokolova D*, Lee SE*, Childs T, Jurčáková N, Crowley G, De Schepper S, Ge JZ, Lachica JI, Toomey CE, Freeman OJ, Hardy J, Barnes SJ, Lashley T, Stevens B, Chang S and Hong S.

Insight into the role of phosphatidylserine in complement-mediated synapse loss in Alzheimer’s disease.

Faculty Reviews, 2021

Sokolova D*, Childs T* and Hong S.

Microglia, phosphatidylserine, and synapse loss: an investigation into the vulnerable synapse.

Master's Thesis, UCL, 2020

Supervisor: Dr Soyon Hong. Award: Distinction.

*Equal Contributors

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