Bio

I am a neuroscientist interested in the structure, function, and evolution of sensory and motor circuits. My research combines in vivo physiology, behavior, computational modeling, and comparative approaches to reveal basic principles of neural coding. As a postdoc with Mala Murthy at Princeton University, I am investigating auditory processing and genetic specification of courtship songs in fruit flies. During my PhD with Bruce Carlson at Washington University in St. Louis, I studied peripheral and central mechanisms of sensory processing in a pathway responsible for communication signal detection in weakly electric fishes.

Research in the Baker Lab is focused on how brain circuits enable animals to understand acoustic communication signals. We study this problem in fruit flies due to their small brains, complex communication signals, and experimental tractability. Our work combines animal behavior, neural recordings, connectomics, computational modeling, and genetic tool building to reveal the mechanisms underlying hearing, and how evolution shapes these mechanisms.

Publications

• Inferring neural population codes for Drosophila acoustic communication , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2025)
• Developmental neuroscience: Building sex-specific adult circuitry from common larval origins , Current Biology (2024)
• Inferring neural dynamics of memory during naturalistic social communication , bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (2024)
• The role of fruitless in specifying courtship behaviors across divergent Drosophila species , Science Advances (2024)
• The role offruitlessin specifying courtship behaviors differs acrossDrosophilaspecies , bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (2023)
• Neural network organization for courtship-song feature detection in Drosophila , Current Biology (2022)
• FlyWire: online community for whole-brain connectomics , Nature Methods (2021)
• Neural Network Organization for Courtship Song Feature Detection inDrosophila , bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (2020)
• Acoustic Pattern Recognition and Courtship Songs: Insights from Insects , Annual Review of Neuroscience (2019)
• Behavioral and Single-Neuron Sensitivity to Millisecond Variations in Temporally Patterned Communication Signals , Journal of Neuroscience (2016)

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