Dr. Farzaneh Najafi
Assistant Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology
Scientist II, Allen Institute for Brain Science
Postdoctoral Researcher, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York
PhD in Biology, University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Farzaneh Najafi identified biology – and in particular, the brain – as a source of fascination from an early age. Growing up in Iran, she would listen to her mother and father, both physicians, talk about interesting patient cases, and these stories piqued her curiosity. Although her scientific path did not follow a straight line from that point onward, that early dream of studying the brain is being realized in real time. As a new Assistant Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, she is trying to understand how diverse systems in our brains utilize predictions to control our actions and sensations.
Farzaneh knew she wanted to study the brain, but she was initially torn between becoming a researcher or a clinician. When she and her twin sister were both admitted to a selective research program and the medical school in Iran, they had to pick a single path. While her sister preferred clinical work, Farzaneh was drawn more towards research. The time eventually came to choose a single path, and the sisters’ paths diverged; Farzaneh chose research and left medical school.
Farzaneh’s first foray into neuroscience research was in stem cell and neurodevelopmental biology, working on differentiating embryonic stem cells into spinal cord neurons. Thus, when she decided to pursue her PhD in the United States, she did so with the original intent of continuing to study neurodevelopment. But upon joining the biology PhD program at the University of Pennsylvania, Farzaneh had the opportunity to rotate in a few different labs before selecting her thesis lab (as is typical of most biology PhD programs in the States). A few of these labs were in the systems neuroscience field, and to her surprise, Farzaneh found that this vein of neuroscience research particularly resonated with her.
She joined the lab of Dr. Javier Medina as his very first PhD student to study prediction error signals in cerebellar circuits. Her thesis research focused on how climbing fibers provide graded prediction error signals to Purkinje cells during learning despite operating in a binary regime. One possibility was that these prediction errors were not encoded at the level of individual neurons but rather at the population level. While she did find evidence for this, she also found something even more surprising. Even though climbing-fiber-evoked complex spikes are binary, Farzaneh discovered that the calcium signals they evoked in Purkinje cell dendrites were not; instead, they scaled with the degree of prediction error. While the culmination of this work was exciting, graduate school was full of ups and downs for Farzaneh, as it is for many. When things were feeling particularly tough, she even considered going back to medical school. However, as an international student, this proved logistically impossible. She also considered data science jobs, but fundamentally, she really loved scientific research. By the time she graduated, she had decided to do a postdoctoral fellowship.
Despite continuing on the academic track, Farzaneh wanted to explore other regions of the brain outside the cerebellum. She cast a wide net and considered many options, but she ultimately settled on joining Dr. Anne Churchland’s lab (at Cold Spring Harbor at the time). There, she studied excitatory and inhibitory cell populations in the cortex and how their encoding of decision parameters changes across learning. The majority of existing models for decision-making circuits were comprised of decision-selective excitatory populations and nonselective inhibitory populations. However, Farzaneh found evidence for selective inhibitory populations, as well as selective excitatory-inhibitory connectivity, that grow in parallel with the selective excitatory populations across learning. Still, at the end of this postdoctoral work, Farzaneh didn’t feel quite ready to start her own lab and was somewhat unsure of what she really wanted to do. The options of doing a second postdoc or leaving academia to take a position in data science or industry did not appeal to her. Despite not feeling quite ready to be a PI, she didn’t want to close that door. She ultimately found the perfect option for her: working as a scientist at the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Working at the Allen Institute was a transformative experience for Farzaneh. She learned a ton, and the Allen’s distinct approach of practicing open science and team science gave her an invaluable new perspective. Still, she always held in the back of her mind the possibility of starting her own lab one day. Two experiences in particular crystallized this goal for her. First, she had the opportunity to take on her own intern whom she hired, designed a project for, and supervised all herself. She found that she loved mentoring, and this convinced her that academia was the right path for her. Second, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she found herself with a lot of time to think. Pondering over some recent results from a team project on how inhibitory neurons in the visual cortex process novel visual stimuli, Farzaneh realized a clear link between this current work and her past work on prediction errors in the cerebellum. A particular population of visual inhibitory neurons showed heightened activity in response to novel, unexpected sensory stimuli, and this was reminiscent of the motor prediction errors she had studied in her PhD. Now with a clearer research goal in mind - how predictions affect perception and action, in both the cortex and cerebellum - Farzaneh took another go at the academic job market with greater conviction and confidence.
Taking the time to further explore her interests and to “feel ready” paid off; Farzaneh is now an Assistant Professor at Georgia Tech as of January 2023. In her lab, she plans to investigate how internal models (used to generate predictions) in the cortex and the cerebellum differ from and communicate with each other to guide sensorimotor behavior. Currently, she finds herself in the challenging and often overwhelming phase of just starting her own lab, constantly faced with the need to make high-stakes decisions – what equipment to buy, who to hire, what of the many to-do items on her list to prioritize. Even though she admits that she doesn’t have the work-life balance that she enjoyed at the Allen Institute, she is happy with this decision and feels that it was the right one for her personality. She describes herself as always aiming high and not liking to be bored, and indeed, those needs are well sated by her new job!
Farzaneh has clearly demonstrated impressive intentionality and conviction through her scientific journey, all while conducting and conceiving exciting and innovative research. That care and thoughtfulness shines through even in the way she describes her own trajectory, emphasizing how things that were the best decisions for her might not be for everyone.
Her advice to others: “No one has had the same life experiences as you or has the same dreams as you. Just see what works best for you, and if you’re unsure, give yourself some time.” Seeing how Farzaneh’s own career has blossomed, anyone should feel confident that this is sage advice indeed.
Find out more about Farzaneh and her lab’s research here.
Listen to Meenakshi’s full interview with Farzaneh on Feb 28, 2023 below!
