The Team
Principal Investigator
Polo Morales
Research Assistant
Heather Terron
Research Assistant
Daniel Leal
Undergraduate Intern
Maleeha Amir
Undergraduate Intern
Austin was raised in New Jersey. His goal is to provide a better understanding of depressive-like behaviors and explore alternative treatment options. Austin is committed to mentoring and teaching in his laboratory. He provides professional and career development assistance for at all levels. He is also an advocate on making a more diverse research environment.
Favorite authors: Michael Crichton, Blake Crouch
Favorite team: Los Angeles Lakers
Favorite shows: The Wire, Below Deck
Polo graduated from UCLA in June 2024 with a B.S in Psychobiology. He was an undergraduate in the Churchland lab working on understanding decision-making in a genetic mouse model for autism, Neurexin1alpha. He utilized a standardized behavioral task from International Brain Laboratory, a two-choice task to probe how priors influence visually-guided decisions.
Favorite artists: Feid, Rels B
Favorite hobbies: Architect and landscape photography, hiking, and exploring the city
Heather graduated from UCSD in June 2021 with a B.S. in Biochemistry and Cell Biology and from Pepperdine in August 2023 with an M.A. in Psychology. She has research experience in exploring the roles of nutrition and alcohol in liver cancer, the placebo effect in pain modulation, and amyloid beta degrading enzymes in Alzheimer’s. Her long-term goal is to obtain her PhD and research the neurobiological impacts of early adversity.
Favorite Artists: SZA, Bad Bunny, The Weeknd and Kacey Musgraves
Hobbies: weightlifting, reading self-development books, and watching the UFC
Daniel is an undergraduate student intern majoring in Neuroscience at UCLA
Fun Fact: He likes to play drums during free time
Favorite Soccer Team: Tottenham Spurs
Maleeha is an undergraduate student intern in Cognitive Science and Bioinformatics at UCLA. She enjoys solving Rubik’s cubes, going on runs and driving around random parts of LA during her free time.
Favorite TV show: Mr. Robot