• Dean of Arts and Sciences
• BRANDEIS HOME

Sciences

Biology | Biochemistry | Chemistry | Computer Science | Math |
Neuroscience | Physics

Biology

For more information about research opportunities in the Biology Dept. please follow this link.

Susan Birren
Research Interests: Developmental neurobiology
Qualifications: Freshman chemistry, enrollment in BIO22b
Responsibilities: Assist with lab chores, participate in laboratory research in developmental neurobiology.

Paul Garrity
Research Interests: Molecular genetics of neural development and behavior.
Qualifications: Completion of BIO22a.
Responsibilities: Research in molecular genetics and assisting with lab maintenance.

Jim Haber
Research Interests: Repair of broken chromosomes. Genetics and molecular biology of yeast meiotic and mitotic recombination. DNA damage responses and checkpoints. Control of recombination donor accessibility (donor preference in mating-type switching). Chromosome dynamics.
Qualifications: BIO22
Responsibilities: To develop original research usually alongside a grad student or postdoc.

Liz Hedstrom
Research Interests: Enzyme mechanisms and structure-function relationships. Design and evaluation of enzyme inhibitors.
Qualifications: Sophomores who have completed at least one year of chemistry are preferred, but we're willing to consider freshman or junior in special cases.
Responsibilities: Students are trained for approximately one semester under the supervision of a graduate student or postdoctoral fellow. After that time they will then begin their own project.  Students are expected to work for two summers and complete and honors thesis.
Lab is full, check again in the fall.

John Lisman                                                                                                                                          Research Interests: Molecular and cellular mechanisms of memory and schizophrenia.

Qualifications: Must have completed or be enrolled in these courses: BIO22 and BIO18.

Responsibilities: Learning the basics of lab equipment use, helping with lab chores, doing independent ressearch under the supervision of grad students and post docs. 

Paul Miller
Research Interests: Computational and theoretical neuroscience.
Qualifications: Strong computational modeling skills (e.g. experience in one or more of Matlab, C, C++, Fortran, or similar). 
Responsibilities: Modeling of systems of neurons or intracellular processes.

James Morris
Research Interests: Epigenetics and biology education.
Qualifications: Biology 18 and 22.
Responsibilities: Drosophila genetics, molecular biology, genomics.

Daniela Nicastro
Research Interests: Electron tomography of cellular and macromolecular structures.
Qualifications: Juniors and Seniors; biology or biochemistry majors.
Responsibilities: Image processing and cell biological projects

Piali Sengupta (Volen)
Research Interests: Developmental neurobiology in C. elegans.
Qualifications:  Bio22 and Bio18. A student who is currently enrolled in these courses may also apply. 
Responsibilities: Students will work with a graduate student or postdoc in the lab initially on a research project. Eventually, they will carry out a senior thesis project independently.

Neil Simister
Research Interests: Molecular immunology. Antibody transport.
Qualifications: Students should have completed Biol 18 or have worked in a life science research lab.
Responsibilities: Students will use mammalian cell culture and molecular biology methods to investigate functions of an antibody transporter.

Gina Turrigiano (Volen)
Research Interests: Experience-dependent plastcity of cortical synapses and circuits.
Qualifications: Students must have some prior lab experience (i.e. chemistry lab course, bio labs).
Responsibilities: Learning the basics of lab equipment use, help with lab chores, do independent research under the supervision of grad students or postdocs.

Larry Wangh
Research Interests: Molecular controls of DNA replication in Xenopus egg.
Qualifications: Sophomores who have done well in Introductory Chemistry and have a keen interest in laboratory based research.
Responsibilities: Students begin with structured projects under supervision of a mentor, but are expected to carry out quite independent laboratory research by the time they reach their junior year and undertake Senior honors research. The goal is to have every student publish at least one paper, sometimes as a first author. Students are required to write a substantial introduction to their Senior honors thesis in which they review the literature thoroughly. Most of the students succeed and graduate with high or highest honors and go on to careers in science of medicine.

Biochemistry

Jeff Gelles
Research Interests: Mechanisms of mechanoenzymes. Stochastic processes in single enzyme molecules. Light microscopy as a tool to study enzyme mechanisms.
Qualifications: Students should have an interest in science and/or engineering. Students can start in this lab as early as their Freshman year and as late as the end of their Junior year.
Responsibilities: Students work directly on research projects either in support roles (for those with little previous research experience) or as more independent researchers (for those with experience fron other labs or who have gained experience in this lab). Most students working in the lab end up writing an honors thesis based on their research project.

Niko Grigorieff
Research Interests: High resolution electron cryo-microscopy of membrane proteins and channels.
Qualifications: General background in Chemistry and lab experience would be helpful.
Responsibilities: For beginners: making buffers, helping with common lab procedures. For advanced students: learning basic electron microscopy and image processing, imaging some protein complexes.

Chris Miller
Research Interests: Structure and function of ion channel proteins. Membrane transport and mechanisms of electrical excitation.
Qualifications: Must be honors major in Biochemistry. Must be willing to work full-time (paid) during summers before junior and senior years, along with taking 99 courses during junior and senior years.
Responsibilities: Basic biochemical research project under supervision of a professor.

Daniel Oprian
Research Interests: Structure-function studies of visual pigments and other cell surface receptors.
Responsibilities: Students are encouraged to join the lab early (freshman or sophomore) beginning with lab support work the first year and moving to independent research projects afterward and eventually completing an honors thesis.

Gregory Petsko
Research Interests: Protein crystallography, especially direct observation of transient species by low-temperature and Laue methods. Protein dynamics. Protein engineering. Yeast genetics. The biology of the quiescent state (G0) of the eukaryotic cell. Enzyme evolution. Neurodegenerative diseases, especially Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Diseases.
Qualifications: Ideally, general and organic chemistry lab, plus biology lab. In practice, dedication and willingness to work hard is the most important qualification.
Responsibilities: Everything ranging from cloning and protein expression to basic crystallography, enzyme kinetics, and some computational work. Depends on the skills and the interest.

Dagmar Ringe
Research Interests: Protein crystallography and structural enzymology. Rational drug design.
Qualifications: Some knowledge of laboratory procedures.
Responsibilities: Tasks on a continuum from lab support for experiments being done by others to independent projects

Douglas Theobald
Research Interests: Structure and function of single-stranded nucleic acid-protein complexes Likelihood and Bayesian techniques in structural bioinformatics  Evolution of molecular structures
Qualifications: An interest in biochemistry, molecular structures, and evolution.

Chemistry

For more information about research opportunities in the Chemistry Dept. please follow this link. 

Jeffrey Agar
Research Interests: Development of mass spectrometry methods for the comprehensive identification of proteins and their post-translationalmodifications. Current projects involve the role of protein modification in the memory and neurodegeneration.
Responsibilities: Try to do novel mass spectrometry or disease related research.

Irving Epstein
Research Interests: Experimental and theoretical studies of oscillating reactions, chaos, waves and pattern formation in reaction diffusion systems. Mathematical modeling of biochemical kinetics and neural systems. Functional networks.
Qualifications: Minimum is Chem 11 and 18 (or 15 and 19). Computer programming skills, physical chemistry, calculus, statistics are valuable but not necessary.
Responsibilities: Experiments (and possibly computer simulations) on oscillating reactions and pattern formation in chemical systems, initially under the close supervision of a faculty member or postdoc, later with more independent responsibility.

Thomas Pochapsky
Research Interests: Self-assembly of chemical and biological systems. Transient interactions in solution by NMR. NMR of soluble proteins. Protein stability and folding by NMR and mutagenesis. Structure and function of metal-containing enzymes and proteins.
Qualifications: Students who have taken freshman chemistry (Chem 11/18) and who are no further along than their sophomore year are preferred.
Responsibilities: Basic research tasks, chemical synthesis, protein expression/ purification, DNA manipulations.

Christine Thomas
Research Interests: Synthetic inorganic, bioinorganic and organometallic chemistry.
Qualifications: At least one semester of organic chemistry and knowledge of basic synthetic and purification techniques is recommended, but not necessarily required.
Responsibilities: Synthesis of new organic and inorganic compounds. Characterization of compounds using NMR, IR, and UV-Vis spectroscopies. Structural determination using single crystal X-ray diffraction. Presentation of results in both formal and informal group meetings. 

Computer Science

For more information about research opportunities in the Computer Science Dept. please follow this link.

Tim Hickey
Research Interests: 3D Animation. Scientific Visualization. Collaborative Software.
Qualifications: Major in Computer Science.
Responsibilities: Weekly group meetings, programming, software development.

Pengyu Hong
Research Interests: Computational biology. Image processing. Statistical machine learning.
Qualifications: Applicants should be good programmers.
Responsibilities:  To implement algorithms and design graphics user interfaces.

Liuba Shrira
Research Interests: Distributed Systems, Reliable and Scalable Storage Systems.
Qualifications: CS31a, CS146a or cs147a.
Responsibilities: Design, implement and evaluate a component of a research system, or implement and evaluate an application for an experimental system, or  survey research literature on state-of the art in a given topic. 

Math

Ruth Charney
Research Interests: Geometric group theory. Topology.
Qualifications: Completion of Math 23b and one of the following: Math 28a, 30a, or 34a.
Responsibilities: Investigations of problems in topology or group theory.

Bong Lian
Research Interests: Representation theory. Calabi-Yau geometry. String theory.
Qualifications: A math major at least in his/her Junior year with consistently solid grades.
Responsibilities: Depends on the student. The work could involve computing.

Daniel Ruberman
Research Interests: Geometric topology and Gauge Theory.
Qualifications: Core upper-level math courses such as 23b, 30, 40 and possibly 32a and/or 34a. Students who work with Prof. Ruberman should have an interest in thinking about geometric objects such as knots and surfaces.
Responsibilities: Students are expected to learn the basic geometric ideas involved , and to learn how to turn these into concrete calculations. Depending on the project, these could easily be computer calculations, and students are expected to master the relevant software.

Neuroscience

Eve Marder
Research Interests: Neurotransmitter modulation of neural circuits.
Qualifications: Major in Neuroscience or Biology.
Responsibilities: Students will be matched with a set of tasks after a brief interview.

Physics

For more information about research opportunities in the Physics Dept. please follow this link.

Craig Blocker
Research Interests: Experimental high-energy physics.
Qualifications: Knowledge of C++ and Unix are often helpful, but not required
Responsibilities: To assist simulation of possible particle physics measurements; analysis of detector commissioning data

Zvonimir Dogic
Research Interests: Soft condensed matter physics. Biological physics.
Responsibilities: Students carry out independent research projects in the broad area of material science and biological physics. The techniques used include protein purification, optical microscopy, theoretical modeling etc.

Michael Hagan
Research Interests: Computation and theory in biological physics.
Qualifications: Experience with calculus and differential equations.
Responsibilities: Tasks involving computational and/or theoretical biophysics, most likely programming.

Matthew Headrick
Research Interests: Theoretical high-energy and gravitational physics; string theory and related areas of quantum field theory, general relativity, and geometry.
Qualifications: Completion of Math 22, 32a, 37a and Physics 30, 31, 40
Responsibilities: Theoretical research related to string theory (no prior knowledge of   string theory required), likely including a computational component.  

Seth Fraden
Research Interests:  Experimental high-energy physics.
Qualifications: Major in Physics, Chemistry or Computer Science.
Responsibilities: Our lab is focused on three areas of materials research and is part of the National Science Foundation's Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at Brandeis. 

• One area involves "active emulsions", a new class of materials in which oscillating chemical reactions are encapsulated into micon-sized droplets. The long term goal of this project is to develop new materials that contain their own energy source and utilize chemical energy to communicate, compute and generate mechanical motion.
• A second area involves bionanotechnology. We genetically engineer viruses and study their self-assembly into liquid crystalline phases using theory, computer simulations and experiment.
• A third area involves technology development. Our lab is engaged in "lab-on-a-chip" development. We are reducing the size chemistry and biology labs to the micron scale by using the same manufacturing methods that has allowed the semiconductor industry to produce computers whose power double every two years. This technology, known as "soft lithography", is transforming the way chemistry, biology, and the physics of soft condensed matter are practiced.
• These projects involve design, construction and testing of microfluidic chips, simulation of the physics of the devices using finite element computer simulations, interfacing chips with computers and automating data acquisition based on LabView. The current focus of the lab is building chips for protein crystallization, chemical communication and determining the properties of biological materials such as viruses, DNA and collagen. See elsie.brandeis.edu for more information of our research.

David Roberts
Research Interests: Galactic and extragalactic astrophysics. Radio astronomy.
Qualifications: Students must be interested in physics, and have completed at least one year of physics and calculus. In special cases first year students are considered.
Responsibilities: Research in astrophysics usually involves using computer programs to analyze data taken in observatories located across the country and around the world. Some advanced students perform theoretical analysis of the results 

Hermann Wellenstein
Research Interests: Experimental high-energy physics.
Qualifications: Most of the projects require a technical or science background or aptitude.  In the past all students have been Physics, Chemistry,  Computer Science, or Math majors.