Principal Investigator

Nigel P. Pedersen, MD, FANA, FAES

Dr. Pedersen is a Professor in the Department of Neurology at UC Davis, where he serves as Vice Chair of Research. He is a physician-scientist whose clinical practice focuses on epilepsy surgery and stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG). He undertook medical studies at the University of Sydney, then clinical training at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School (Intern Internal Medicine), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center & Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School (Neurology), and Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School (Epilepsy and Neurobiology, Epilepsy, Clinical Neurophysiology).

His research program investigates large-scale brain network function in epilepsy, sleep, and cognition, combining invasive recordings in human subjects with circuit-level approaches in mouse models. He trained in neuroscience during two post-doctoral training fellowships at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in the laboratory of Clifford B. Saper, where his work on brainstem arousal circuitry was published in Nature Communications, Science, and Neuron.

PubMed · Email

Postdoctoral Fellows

Katherine “Kat” McNeely-White, PhD

Post-Doctoral Fellow

[Bio coming soon]

Project Scientists

Eleanora Napoli, PhD

Project Scientist

[Bio coming soon]

Graduate Students

Danny Lasky, BS

Neuroscience PhD Student

[Bio coming soon]

Raul Castillo-Astorga, MD

Biomedical Engineering PhD Student

[Bio coming soon]

Mayuko Arai, BS

Neuroscience Graduate Student

[Bio coming soon]

Undergraduate Scholars

  • Bao Nguyen
  • Greta Pilkauskaite
  • Lauryn Lee
  • Prutha Patel
  • Soraya Fattahi
  • Michelle Ohajekwe
  • Shayaan Thadani

UC Davis Collaborators

  • Christelle Anaclet, PhD — Associate Professor of Neurological Surgery · Co-PI on sleep/epilepsy research; sleep circuit neurobiology
  • Heinrich Gompf, PhD — Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery · Sleep and brainstem circuitry
  • Andrew Yonelinas, PhD — Professor of Psychology · Memory and cognition
  • Charan Ranganath, PhD — Professor of Psychiatry · Memory and cognition
  • Zhibin Zhou, MD, PhD — Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology
  • Caren Armstrong, MD, PhD — Assistant Professor of Neurology
  • Melissa Asmar, MD, MSc — Assistant Professor of Neurology
  • Jimmy Wu, PhD — Project Scientist

External Collaborators

  • Daniel L. Drane, PhD — Professor of Neurology, Emory University · Neuropsychology of epilepsy surgery
  • Anne M. Cleary, PhD — Professor of Psychology, Colorado State University · Human memory, déjà vu, and familiarity
  • Joseph Neisser, PhD — Professor of Philosophy, Grinnell College · Philosophy of mind; metamemory and subjective experience
  • Catherine Liégeois-Chauvel, PhD — University of Pittsburgh
  • Adam Williamson, PhD — Professor of Engineering, Linkping, Brno, Beijing.
  • Hussam Shaker, MD — Epilepsy Director, Trinity Health/Michigan State University
  • Patrick Chauvel, MD — Professor of Neurology, Cleveland Clinic

Alumni

  • Lauren Aiani, BS — Prior Lab Manager, now Research Administrator, Emory University
  • Adam S. Dickey, MD, PhD — Prior clinical and research fellow, now faculty at Baylor
  • Katherine Zhu, MD — Prior undergraduate, now Plastic Surgery Resident at Mass. General Brigham
  • Noah Okada, BS — Prior undergraduate, now PhD candidate at CalTech
  • Lucie Rosenberg, BS — Prior undergraduate, now graduate student
  • Brandon Harvey, PhD — Prior graduate student, now post-doc at UNM
  • [under development]