Schoppik Lab

The lab has room. If you’re interested please reach out.

Kyla Hamling, Ph.D.

Kyla did her undergraduate work at Lewis & Clark College studying neural development. She's investigating how the development of vestibulospinal neurons helps fish learn how to balance. Kyla is funded by her NIH F31 award. @kyla_hamling

Samantha Davis, Au.D.

Sam did her undergraduate degree at Ohio University where she studied the effects of delayed auditory feedback on speech production. More recently, she earned a clinical Doctorate of Audiology (AuD) at the University of Washington where she used zebrafish to look at toxic effects of antimalarial drugs. @samanthandavis.bsky.social

Yunlu Zhu, Ph.D.

Yunlu did his doctoral work with Sarah Kucenas at UVA where (among other things) he discovered that migratory neural crest cells actually phagocytose dead cells in the developing nervous system. He spearheads the lab’s studies of balance behavior, investigating how the brain uses information from multiple senses to maintain posture as fish learn to navigate. He’s also leading our efforts to understand neurodegeneration in a model of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, with specific emphasis on vestibulo-spinal neurons that stabilize posture. Yunlu was funded by his Leon Levy Fellowship, and then by the Rainwater Tau Leadership Fellowship. @YunluZhu

Franziska Auer, Ph.D.

Franzi worked with Tim Czopka in while at the Technical University in Munich where she studied myelin sheath remodeling. She’s studied how the cerebellum shapes postural development and is now working to understand myelin development in the vestibular system. She was awarded a DFG from the German Research Foundation in support of her work, and is currently funded by a K99/R00 award from NIDCD. @Franzino4

Hannah Gelnaw

Hannah joined us after completing her undergraduate work at Vanderbilt. She’s been a powerhouse in the lab, leading her own investigations into how Tau disrupts postural behavior when expressed in neurons and astrocytes. She’s our official genome wrangler, using CRISPR/Cas9 to mutate candidate genes that cause strabismus, a common developmental disorder of vision.

David Schoppik, Ph.D.

David trained as an undergraduate in the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at NYU, did his doctoral work with Steve Lisberger at UCSF, and worked as a postdoc with Alexander Schier and Florian Engert at Harvard University. Scientific genealogy at Neurotree. List of publications can be found at Google Scholar. @schoppik (minimally on Twitter anymore) @schoppik.bsky.social or…

Previous Postdoctoral Fellows:
David Ehrlich’s first paper showed that zebrafish learn to move to balance. His second discovered a surprising role for the vestibular system in cerebellum-dependent coordinated movements. David went uptown for a short stint in Nate Sawtell’s lab at Columbia before starting his own lab at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Get in touch with him here or @EhrlichLab

Previous Graduate Students:
Kristen P. D’Elia started by optimizing a technique to birthdate developing neurons during her rotation (paper). Her thesis work in the Schoppik and Dasen labs, funded by an NIH F31 award, uncovered a set of transcription factors that determine motor neurons that control fast muscle types. She now works at Regneron, and tweets @kp_delia

Previous Technicians:
Hanna Hameedy: Hanna joined the Schoppik and Dasen labs while an undergraduate at NYU and stayed on as a technician. She did beautiful work to understand the transcription factors that specify functional subtypes of zebrafish motor neurons. She’s off to Brown to pursue her Ph.D. and they are lucky to have her!

Basak Rosti got her Bachelor and Master's degrees at Istanbul University and spent five years running the zebrafish research arm in Joseph Gleeson's laboratory. She worked on the molecular logic that controls development of neurons in the vestibulo-ocular reflex circuit.

Katherine Harmon: Katherine received a bachelors degree in neuroscience from Bowdoin College in 2014, where she learned to be an ace in vivo intracellular electrophysiologist. Her research focused on the developing vestibulo-spinal neurons responsible for balance. Katherine’s since received her M.D. from SUNY Stonybrook.

Marie Greaney: Marie transitioned from plant-coaxing to fish-wrangling after graduating from Haverford College in 2014. She published her first paper on the development of ocular motoneurons in 2016. She built a bleeding-edge microscope in collaboration with Elizabeth Hillman's group and used them to study the neural circuits responsible for locomotion. Marie is now at the University of Chicago for graduate school. @rhymeswbrainy

Previous Rotation/Summer/Undergrad Students:

Katherine Nardone (UG) measured balance behavior of developing zebrafish after manipulation of cerebellar activity.

Prash Allam (UG) measured the development and organization of vestibulospinal neurons.

Cheryl Quainoo (UG) measured the development of the neuromuscular junction in developing zebrafish extraocular motor neurons.

Mercer Kriese (summer) analyzed gene expression in spinal motor neurons.

Keelin O’Neil (rotation) classified motor neurons in mutant fish and their wildtype siblings to determine if losing a particular transcription factor changed the fate that they adopted. She joined the Basu lab.

Aaron Lanz (rotation) developed a pipeline for presenting visual stimuli that evoke reflexive swimming to test for locomotor deficits in mutant fish. He’s joined the Nagel lab as a graduate student (good choice!)

Zoë Dobler (summer) kicked off our research into the neural mechanisms that give rise to the debilitating symptoms of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, a neurodegenerative disease. She’s at UCLA as a student in the Portrera-Cailliau lab.

Paula Cruz Vázquez (summer) joined us through NYU’s SURP program for the summer. She worked on identifying genes expressed in the motoneurons that move the eyes.

Ali Ehrlich (rotation) looked at gene expression patterns in developing vestibular neurons for her rotation. She joined Justin Blau’s lab.

Brooke Holey (rotation) built an apparatus to look at how fish balanced in flowing water, and how fish responded to olfactory cues for her rotation. She joined David Schneider’s lab.

Vaishali Talwar (rotation) looked at the neurons responsible for posture for her rotation in the lab..

Ann Privorotskiy (UG) studied the development of oculomotor neurons while she was an undergraduate at the Macaulay Honors College at Baruch.  

Mahdi Choudhury (UG): Mahdi joined us as an NYU undergraduate and looked looking into how zebrafish learn to stabilize their gaze as they grow.

Zhiwei Li (rotation): Zhiwei rotated in the lab, where she worked to develop our pipeline to analyze data generated by combined imaging and electrophysiology. She’s in the Ma lab now.

Avenelle Onaifo (summer): Avenelle also spent the summer in the lab (2016) as part of NYU's Girls in Science, Technology and Medicine summer program. She too worked on coding eye movements to understand how gaze stabilization develops.

Margaret Zhang (summer): Maggie spent the summer in the lab (2015) as part of NYU's Girls in Science, Technology and Medicine summer program. She worked on coding eye movements to understand how gaze stabilization develops.  

Simóne Sun (rotation): Simóne was a graduate student in Dick Tsien's lab and went to work with Jessica Tollkuhn for a postdoc.

David Tingley (rotation):  David graduated from Gyuri Buzsaki's lab and went to the Andermann lab for a postdoc.