I study the way being born deprived of a sensory modality (for example, being born blind or deaf) affects brain organization and cognition. Studying people born blind, deaf or dysmelic (born without hands) helps learn about how sensory (or motor) experience in each sense is required for specific brain systems to develop, and how these plastically change in their absence. 

The sensory-motor deprivation model serves to assess the roles of critical developmental periods, compensatory cross-modal plasticity and sensory-independent (a-modal) processes in the human brain.

 I’ll be joining the Georgetown University Neuroscience department starting September 2019. I will look for passionate researchers to work with me at all levels: RA, lab manager, grad students and postdoc.