James Allen
Ph.D. Candidate, Neuroscience Graduate Program (joint with Sando Lab)
Vanderbilt Brain Institute Scholar, Vanderbilt Brain Institute
James graduated from Emory University in 2019 double majoring in Neuroscience and Music. As an undergraduate he studied the function of human variants in glutamate receptor genes with Stephen Traynelis and continued these studies as a research specialist until 2022. He started his graduate studies at Vanderbilt in 2022 through the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program (IGP).
In 2023, he joined the Neuroscience Graduate Program (NGP) and joined the labs of Dr. Qiangjun Zhou and Dr. Richard Sando. Here, he is studying synapse formation through a combination of super-resolution fluorescent microscopy and cryo-electron tomography. In his free time, he enjoys playing guitar, bass, cello, piano, and singing.