Ian Antón Oldenburg
Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, RWJMS
Director of the CABM Program for Holographic and Optogenetic Biology
Ian received a B.S. in biology from Carnegie Mellon University. In 2014, he completed his Ph.D. in neuroscience at Harvard University under the supervision of Bernardo Sabatini, there he investigated the interactions between the basal ganglia and motor cortex. As a postdoctoral fellow in Hillel Adesnik’s lab at the University of California Berkeley he developed new multiphoton holographic optogenetic approaches and used them to dissect the interactions between neurons in sensory cortex.
In general, Ian is interested in understanding how neurons interact with each other to give rise to behaviors. However, these interactions can be diverse, depending heavily on context, and on the specifics of which neurons are firing when. In many cases, the first step to answer these questions is to build new tools that allow ever more precise manipulations.
Barbara Gruszka
PhD Student – Neuroscience
Barbara is a PhD student in the School of Graduate Studies Neuroscience Program at Rutgers – New Brunswick. Barbara graduated from Princeton University in 2020 with a degree in Neuroscience. For her undergraduate thesis work, Barbara worked in the Intelligent Performance and Adaptation (IPA) laboratory with Dr. Jordan Taylor. There, she designed a virtual reality throwing task and collected performance, motor, and eye-tracking data to further understand the effect of feedback-less practice movements on performance. After graduation, Barbara worked as a Pharmacology and Biomarkers Research Associate II for PTC Therapeutics, a company specializing in developing therapeutics for orphan diseases. In her free time, Barbara enjoys painting commissioned animal portraits, swimming, and refining her computer programming skills.
Dylan Sullivan
Research Technician
Dylan is a Research Technician in the Oldenburg Lab at the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine. He completed his Bachelor’s degree in psychology at Rutgers University and his Master’s degree in Cell and Developmental Biology at Rutgers University . For his undergraduate thesis, Dylan worked in Dr. Kasia Bieszczad’s lab to study the electrophysiological changes in sensory encoding that result from experience-dependent plasticity specific to opioid and cocaine-associated cues. His graduate thesis work was done under the mentorship of Dr. Bonnie Firestein where he studied the electrophysiological changes in cortical neuronal networks that result from TBI-like injury. There, he also used Fluorescent Lifetime Imaging Microscopy (FLIM) to track proteins responsible for dendrite growth and branching in live neurons. In his free time, Dylan enjoys reading and playing guitar
Masashi Hasegawa
Postdoctoral Researcher
Masashi is a postdoctoral fellow in the Oldenburg lab at Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine. He originally studied experimental psychology and behavioral toxicology at Hokkaido University (Japan), then moved into systems neuroscience. He conducted his dissertation research, investigating the neural mechanisms underlying motor preparation and execution by using a two-photon microscope, at the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, under supervision of Dr. Takashi Sato. As a postdoctoral fellow in Jan Gründemann lab at University of Basel (Switzerland) and German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (Germany), he established deep brain imaging techniques by using a GRIN lens, and investigated the neural plasticity of auditory thalamus across cross-modal sensory learning.
In the Oldenburg lab, Masashi will employ multiphoton holographic optogenetic approaches to uncover how neural ensemble activities give rise to specific behaviors.
Kate Yashmanov
Undergraduate Researcher
Kate joined the lab June 2023 as a CABM SURE student. She is a Neuroscience major Class of 2026.
Hailey Thomas
Undergraduate Researcher
Hailey joined the lab September 2023. She is a Neuroscience major Class of 2026.
Taylor Troncoso
Undergraduate Researcher
Taylor joined the lab September 2023. She is a Pharmacology major Class of 2026.
Lab Alumni :
Raj Harsora
Research Technician Nov 2023 – May 2024 – Now Ph.D. student Rowan University
Elle Ketterer-Sykes
NeuroSURP Undergraduate Research Assistant
Hunain Kazi
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Priyanka Panchedula
Undergraduate Research Assistant