Confronting Impostor Syndrome

Nanthia Suthana is an assistant professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences, neurosurgery, and bioengineering in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She completed her BS and PhD in neuroscience and postdoctoral training in the department of neurosurgery at UCLA before joining the faculty. She investigates neuronal mechanisms of human episodic memory and spatial navigation using intracranial recordings and stimulation in neurosurgical patients with implanted electrodes. She serves as the associate director of the neuromodulation division at the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, and as the associate director of neuroscience outreach for the Brain Research Institute at UCLA.

Erich Jarvis is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and the Head of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics of Language at The Rockefeller University in New York City. He previously worked as a professor at Duke University. Dr. Jarvis investigates vocal learning in songbirds and other animals as a model for understanding spoken language in humans. He integrates computational, behavioral, physiological, and molecular techniques to explore the neural genetics of vocal learning and the evolution of this complex behavior. He earned his bachelor’s degree in biology and mathematics from Hunter College, his PhD in neuroscience, f completed postdoctoral training from The Rockefeller University.

Rockelle Guthrie earned her bachelor’s degree in microbiology from Indiana University, Bloomington. Although her interest in studying the gut microbiome led to her to pursue a doctoral education in the molecular, cellular, and integrative physiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, she now resides in the laboratory of sleep, learning, and memory expert Gina Poe, where she investigates how sleep facilitates gain of insight. Guthrie hopes to play a role in the generation of a scientific community that is dedicated to the creation and maintenance of spaces in which we can openly engage with the public during the process of exploration and discovery.

Gina Poe is a neuroscientist and a professor in the department of integrative biology and physiology, and the department of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles and is on the executive committee to UCLA’s Brain Research Institute. Poe’s lab research is dedicated to the study of the role of sleep for learning and memory consolidation, including the mechanisms that fail that process in mental disorders. She graduated with a BA in human biology from Stanford University then entered the UCLA Neuroscience Interdepartmental Program (NSIDP) where she was appointed as a predoctoral trainees on a Basic Sleep training program.

Calisi Rodríguez is faculty in the department of neurobiology, physiology, and behavior in the College of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Davis. Calisi received her PhD in integrative biology from the University of California, Berkeley. She was awarded a competitive postdoctoral fellowship from the National Science Foundation and the UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship. She is expanding her research program to encompass the study of science communication to support diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM.

Sadye Paez is a program director and senior research associate at The Rockefeller University. She previously was an assistant professor at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Paez’s main research interests lie in the intersections between clinical and translational genomics research with public and global health promotion and disease prevention. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Central Florida in micro- and molecular biology and her PhD in biomechanics and human movement studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a licensed physical therapist with more than 15 years of clinical experience.