Research Interests: Electrophysiology, synaptic plasticity, neurodevelopmental disorders
Advisor: Tingting Wang
Rotations: Haiyan He, Mark Burns, Tingting Wang
Prior Education: BS in Neuroscience and Biostatistics (Double Major), Emmanuel College (Boston)
Originally from Coventry, Rhode Island, James moved to Boston after high school to pursue Neuroscience in his undergraduate studies at Emmanuel College in Boston. He began his research career in the lab of Dr. Lauren Orefice at Harvard Medical School / Massachusetts General Hospital where he investigated gastrointestinal dysfunction in mouse models of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). During this research he learned that conditional ASD mutations restricted to the peripheral nervous system could still elicit ASD phenotypes including altered behavior and neuronal hyperexcitability. Following graduation, he continued in the lab as a lab technician / lab manager for 2 years before joining the IPN at Georgetown. Now in the lab of Dr. Tingting Wang, he hopes to continue investigating how neurodevelopmental disorders such as ASD contribute to synaptic and neuronal dysfunction using drosophila melanogaster as a model organism. In his free time, he enjoys cooking, playing soccer, and going to local pubs to play pool with friends.