Meet the new members of the Neuroscience Institute

The Neuroscience Institute is pleased to welcome five faculty memberships to the team. Satish Chitneni, PhD (Radiology), Jorge Jaramillo, PhD (Neurobiology), Sarah King, PhD (Chemistry), Ramon Nogueira, PhD (Neurobiology), and Douglas R. Nordli, Jr., MD (Pediatrics) joined the Institute in the past year.

Learn more about them:

Satish Chitneni, PhD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF RADIOLOGY

Dr. Satish Chitneni, a radiochemistry faculty, came to UChicago in 2023 from Duke University in North Carolina (NC). After living in a quiet small town of Cary near the Research Triangle Park in NC for over 8 years, he and his family are very excited about the move and life in Chicago. His family includes his spouse who’s a pharmacist, 13-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old son.  

His hobbies and interests include gardening and traveling – example, seasonal visits to the beautiful blue ridge mountains and beaches of North Carolina.

Jorge Jaramillo, PhD

Assistant Professor, Department of Neurobiology

Before joining UChicago, Dr. Jaramillo was a Junior Group Leader at the European Neuroscience Institute and Campus Institute for Dynamics of Biological Networks in Göttingen (2021-2023) and a postdoctoral associate in the lab of Prof. Xiao-Jing Wang at the New York University Center for Neural Science (2015-2020). He received a PhD in Computational Neuroscience as a Bernstein Fellow in Berlin, Germany under the supervision of Prof. Richard Kempter (2014).

Dr. Jaramillo investigates how subcortical structures interact with cortical circuits to subserve cognitive processes such as memory, attention, and decision-making. They use tools from dynamical systems and control theory to simulate and analyze how distributed neural dynamics arise from multiregional neural circuits and how these dynamics are controlled for purposeful behavior. Moreover, they study the network and behavioral effects of exogenous neuromodulation of subcortical structures (e.g., as used in DBS) to discover new avenues for the treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders. 
 

Sarah King, PhD

Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry

The King group investigates condensed phase and interface dynamics using the tools of ultrafast spectroscopy, surface science, and materials science. The group focuses on understanding the ultrafast dynamics of non-equilibrium excited electronic states on 10s of femtosecond to picosecond timescales in order to determine the mechanisms of energy transfer in polycrystalline and heterogeneous materials and across interfaces.

Interfaces and boundaries between materials, phases, and structural motifs are ubiquitous in our natural and manufactured world. Changes in the atomic and electronic structure of materials and molecules at interfaces and material boundaries lead to unique properties such as modified excited state lifetimes, charge transport mechanisms, and interfacial states. In materials, boundaries, and interfaces can create unique electronic states that improve charge transfer or produce trap states, facilitating charge recombination. This influences material suitability for applications such as photovoltaics or light emitting diodes. Relevant to environmental science and catalysis, unique interfacial electronic states can fundamentally change chemical reactivity at surfaces, altering pollutant reactivity and catalysis mechanisms.
 

Ramon Nogueira, PhD

Assistant Professor, Department of Neurobiology

Dr. Nogueira obtained his M.Sc. in theoretical physics (cosmology and astroparticles) from U. de Barcelona (2012) and a PhD in computational neuroscience from U. Pompeu Fabra (2017), where he worked on perceptual decision-making and the role of noise correlations on information and behavior. After that, he completed a postdoctoral training at the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience at Columbia University (2023) where he focused on characterizing the geometry of representations in different brain areas and tasks, and on training and analyzing artificial neural networks as simplified models of brain regions and behavior. 

Dr. Nogueira's research focuses on characterizing the geometry of neural representations in the high-dimensional neural state space to understand the computational support of artificial and biological cognition. They develop analytical and computational tools to identify the representational geometry of noisy neural circuits in datasets recorded by experimental collaborators from different brain areas and cognitive processes like decision-making, working memory, and navigation. They also train artificial neural network models and use these same tools to compare the computational strategies implemented by artificial and biological networks and derive additional predictions. They make use of the latest tools in ML/AI to shed light onto the connection between brain activity and behavior and contribute to the emerging field of NeuroAI.
 

Douglas R. Nordli, Jr., MD

PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF PEDIATRICS

Douglas R. Nordli, Jr., MD, is a highly skilled neurologist who specializes in treating children with neurological conditions. Dr. Nordli focuses on pediatric epilepsy, with a particular interest in early onset epilepsy, and he is passionate about understanding each child’s unique condition so that he can provide targeted treatment for better results.

Along with Dr. Nordli’s clinical work, he is also actively researching methods to improve pediatric neurology care. He is investigating techniques to predict and alter the course of epilepsy and examining how a novel method of classification of epilepsy can lead to better diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Nordli has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Pediatrics, Pediatric Neurology, Epilepsia, and Epilepsy & Behavior. 

Please join us in welcoming them to our community!