Neuroscience GRADUATE Program

Diversity in Science ~ Michael earned the McKnight Doctoral Fellowship! This fellowship was created for students pursing doctorate degrees at Florida universities to build equity, diversity and inclusion for under representation of African American and Hispanic populations for those in pursuit of a career in research and teaching at a college or university level.

"I’m currently conducting research in Dr. Irem Koruku’s lab, where we are preparing to investigate how executive function develops in preschool-aged children using behavioral coding methods. The lab focuses on how environmental and contextual factors shape executive function. I’m particularly interested in how early cognitive skills—such as attention, self-control, and working memory—emerge and develop, especially in children facing challenges like ADHD, developmental delays, and educational inequalities."

"Researching the development and application of genetically encoded glutamate sensors in the labs of Dr. Lin Tian Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience (MPFI) and Dr. Randy Blakely. In the Tian lab, I am using techniques in molecular and cellular biology to optimize a glutamate sensor for in vivo applications."

"I am using zebrafish as a model organism in Dr. Laura Fontenas’ lab. I am investigating glial migration at the interface of the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system to elucidate potential demyelinating pathologies and gain a better understanding of myelination mechanisms."

"My primary research interests are using large language models to automate model validation in computational neuroscience. For the validation analysis I am focused on drosophila connectomics data and augmenting the connectomics tool ‘FlyBrainLab’. I am also working with the National Drug Early Warning System on a NIH training grant to predict substance abuse trends by using machine learning on data scraped from online drug discussion forums."

"In the lab of Dr. Gregg Fields, I am investigating the function of protease MT5-MMP and its products in Alzheimer's disease. We are also interested in using our cellular and mouse models to explore the role of MT5-MMP's binding partner HTRA1 in neurodegenerative disease."