About Jasmine

A Neurobiology and Behavior Ph.D. candidate with Ashok Litwin-Kumar at Columbia University, Jasmine is interested in investigating biological algorithms for learning using computational models. She is also interested in developing new machine learning techniques using insights from this work.

After receiving a B.S. in Computer Science from Yale University in 2020, Jasmine developed methods for analyzing neural data as a Churchill Scholar at the University of Cambridge. In her Master’s thesis under the supervision of Dr. Guillaume Hennequin, she introduced a technique for scaling Gaussian Process Factor Analysis to data sets one thousand times larger than was previously possible.

While in Dr. John Murray’s lab at Yale, she developed and released PsychRNN, a software package for modeling decision-making, memory, and other cognitive tasks using recurrent neural networks. She began her neuroscience research in 2014 investigating human depth processing with Drs. Alex Huk and Larry Cormack. In 2016, she interned at Janelia working on algorithms for calcium ion imaging with Dr. Jeremy Freeman. She has also interned at Google and CTRL-Labs, a brain machine interface company recently acquired by Facebook.

Jasmine was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 2019 and is a recipient of a Goldwater Scholarship and an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. She enjoys synchronized swimming, social swing dancing, and playing violin. She also enjoys mentoring Ph.D. applicants through Project SHORT and Cientifico Latino and undergraduates interested in neuroscience research through the Black Undergraduate Mentorship Program at Columbia.