Alumni

Nicole Sang Lav will receive her B.S. in Human Biology and B.A. in Philosophy from the University of California, Irvine in 2024, working with Dr. Lisa Flanagan on neural stem cell development and glioblastoma resistance. Nicole joined the Paredes Lab as an SRTP student in 2024, doing characterization of the spatiotemporal distribution of proliferation of inhibitory interneurons. Her research interests include neurodevelopment, cancer, bioethics, and biomedical engineering.

Alex leads a partnered project between the Paredes Lab and the Vision and Perception Neuroscience Lab directed by Professor Kalanit Grill-Spector at Stanford University. Using immunohistochemistry, she is examining the development of cell types (neurons, astrocytes, oligodendrocytes) and cellular structures (arborization, synapses, myelin) in human infant brain samples. Her focus is on the following regions of human visual cortex: the calcarine sulcus (where primary visual cortex resides), the fusiform gyrus (where face-selective regions reside), the collateral sulcus (where place-selective regions reside), and the occipitotemporal sulcus (where character- and body-selective regions reside). Ultimately, the goal of her efforts will be to relate developmental findings from immunohistochemistry to longitudinal human infant neuroimaging data acquired at Stanford.

A.J. Fraser is a senior at Cornell University studying Molecular Biology. A.J. joined the Paredes Lab as an undergraduate summer intern in June 2023, assisting Dr. Pastor Alonso with his hippocampal neural stem cell research. His research interests include the relationship between neural stem cells, adult neurogenesis, and neuroplasticity and the potential therapeutic avenues neural stem cells can have in neuropsychiatry.

Hannah Lambing received her B.S. in Neuroscience from UCLA in 2018 and is currently in her second year of the Clinical Research Master’s program at UCSF. She is particularly interested in translational research and plans to pursue her doctoral degree at the intersection between basic and clinical developmental neuroscience. She joined the Paredes lab in summer of 2021 and is working closely with Oier to elucidate the developmental timeline of neural stem cells and progenitors throughout pre-natal and post-natal development and into adulthood.

Andrew Cheng is a neuroscience major on the pre-medical track in Swarthmore College’s Class of 2024. He worked with Oier Pastor Alonso over the summer of 2022, developing and running the isolation and sequencing of non-epileptic, peri-epileptic, and epileptic tissue from both sEEG electrodes and resective surgery.

Andrew also worked with Oier in the summer of 2021, helping to identify and track intermediate neural progenitor cell density, development, and proliferation in the human dentate gyrus during the perinatal/postnatal period.

Andrew Cheng is a prospective neuroscience major in Swarthmore College’s Class of 2024. He worked with Oier Pastor in the Paredes lab over the summer of 2021, helping to identify and track intermediate neural progenitor cell density, development, and proliferation in the human dentate gyrusduring the perinatal/postnatal period.

Amanda Johnson received her B.S. in Cell & Molecular Biology from San Francisco State University in 2019 and is currently a CIRM scholar intern working on her M.S. in Stem Cell Biology. Her past research was focused on studying the effect of environmental toxins on early chicken embryo development. She joined the Parades lab in July of 2020 and hopes to elucidate how chromosomal microdeletions impair neurodevelopment. She plans to pursue a doctoral degree and focus on stem cells in regenerative medicine.