I am Md Shakhawat Hossain, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute at Johns Hopkins University, working in the laboratory of Dr. Daniel O’Connor. My research focuses on sensorimotor circuit control, specifically dissecting the neural mechanisms and pathway dynamics underlying orofacial proprioception and motor coordination during jaw and tongue movements.

I completed my Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University under the mentorship of Dr. Patrick Drew, supported by an American Heart Association (AHA) Predoctoral Fellowship and an NIH T32 Neural Engineering Training Fellowship. My doctoral research investigated neurovascular coupling, sleep-dependent cerebral blood volume dynamics, and neuromodulatory control of brain waste clearance. To study these systems, I employed multimodal experimental techniques—including in vivo optical imaging, fiber photometry, extracellular electrophysiology, pupil tracking, and quantitative signal processing.