Dr. Dragoi examines how networks of cortical neurons encode information and how the population code influences behavioral decisions in real time. Research in his laboratory combines electrophysiological (multi-electrode recording in restrained and freely moving animals, optical and electrical stimulation), behavioral, and computational methods. He received rigorous training in experimental and theoretical neuroscience. His goals are to understand the neuronal computations and coding principles of cortical circuits and develop new technologies for high-yield neuronal recording of brain activity. 

Mircea received his B.Sc. in Electrical engineering and his PhD in computer sciences at Polytechnic Institute, Iasi, Romania. He was a post-doctoral fellow at Duke University and then in Univ of Western Ontario from 2004-2006. Since 2009, Mircea has been a research scientist at Dragoi lab. 

Sorin received his BSc in Physics from Bucharest University, Romania and his PhD in Astrophysics & Space Sciences from Université Denis Diderot – Paris VII, Paris, France. After working at the Astronomical Institute, Bucharest, Romania and Prairie View A&M University, Sorin joined the Dragoi Lab in 2006. 

Color is one of the most important aspects of natural images that humans encounter in everyday life. It guides perceptions and eventually actions. Sunny's focus is on understanding how higher visual areas like V4 encode color information and how this might be affected by adaptation. Prior to working in the Dragoi lab, Sunny went to graduate school in the Physics department at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he worked under the supervision of John Beggs. Sunny's research involved computing functional connectivity from high density multi-electrode array recordings of in-vitro and in-vivo neural populations. 

Upon completing her Masters in neuroscience from McGill University, Ariana moved to Houston for her PhD. Her dissertation used optogenetics in non-human primates to study how neuronal populations create sensory perceptions. In 2017, she started her post-doctoral work at the Dragoi lab. 

Alexandra graduated from the University of Texas with a BS in neuroscience where she worked in Dr. MacKenzie Howard's lab studying disrupted synaptic plasticity in genetic epilepsy models of Dravet Syndrome. She started at GSBS in 2020 and joined the Dragoi lab where she is interested in the neurophysiology of social interaction in non-human primates.

Mitchell studies neuroscience in the MD/PhD program at McGovern Medical School. He graduated with high honors in philosophy at Swarthmore College and completed the post-bac premedical program at Johns Hopkins, where he worked in Dr. Cherie Marvel's lab examining how the cerebellum contributes to cognition. In the Dragoi lab, he uses machine learning to better understand how the brain processes visual information. 

Sumayyah studied psychology and mathematics at the University of Houston, where she researched the neural basis of attention in Benjamin Tamber-Rosenau's lab. She then conducted research on the spatio-temporal properties of alpha activity in human visual cortex at the lab of Brett Foster, as a PREP scholar at Baylor College of Medicine. Sumayyah joined Dragoi lab in 2021, and she is interested in using optogenetics to study the neural computations underlying visual perception.

Madison graduated from Fordham University with a BS with research honors in psychology and bioethics in 2020. She worked as a research assistant at the Houston Methodist Research Institute and a research coordinator at UTHealth Dept. of Neurology before joining GSBS in 2022. She is interested in cognitive neuroscience and cortical interactions in learning in primates.

Arun received his BE in Computer Engineering at Tribhuvan University, Nepal, and his MS in Software Engineering at Texas Tech University. He is currently conducting research on how visual information is represented in visual areas V4 and dlPFC of freely roaming primates. Before this, he used micro-electric stimulation to induce sleep-like activity, electrocorticography (ECoG) to understand cortical states and intrinsic optical imaging to investigate orientation and color maps in visual areas V2 and V4.