• vincent costa phd neuroscientist CV

    Vincent Costa PhD (he/him)

    Associate Professor

    Vinny enjoys visiting art museums.

    His favorite brain region is the BLA.

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  • kathryn rothenhoefer phd neuroscientist CV

    Kathryn Rothenhoefer PhD (she/her)

    Postdoctoral Scientist

    Kathryn enjoys watching whimsical television shows.

    Her favorite brain region is the VTA.

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  • McKenna Romac

    McKenna Romac BS (she/her)

    Graduate Student

    McKenna enjoys playing and watching soccer.

    Her favorite brain region is the ACC.

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  • Zachary Dahlquist Undergraduate Research Assistant

    Zachary Dahlquist (he/him)

    Research Assistant

    Zach enjoys scuba diving and swimming.

    His favorite brain region is the OFC.

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Scientific journeys are rarely straight lines. Vinny’s own path evolved from art school to human affective neuroscience, and finally to animal models of neural circuits. We celebrate unconventional backgrounds and cross-disciplinary thinking because decades of data show that trainees who synthesize disparate expertise are the most likely to succeed. If you want to bridge distinct fields and forge your own unique path, come build it here.

McKenna Romac presenting amygdala transcriptomic poster at 2023 Amygdala GRC meeting.
JOIN THE COSTA LAB
Pauline Audurier presents her poster on symmetry perception in macaques at VSS.
Kati presents poster on frontopolar cortex encoding of information bonuses at SfN in 2025.

Former Team Members

  • Postdoctoral Scientist (2022-2024)*

    Next: Postdoctoral Scientist in Sliwa Lab @ Paris Brain Institute

    *Co-mentored with Dr. Robert Friedman

  • Assistant Staff Scientist (2022-2024)

    Next: Research Engineer in McCane Lab @ Oregon National Primate Research Center

  • Postdoctoral Scientist (2023-2024)

    Computational Biologist (2021-2023)

    Next: Technical Writer in Yu Lab @ Oregon Health and Science Universiy

  • Summer Intern (2023)

    Next: Premedical Student @ Brown University

  • Summer Intern (2023)

    Next: Premedical Student @ University of California-Berkeley

  • Senior Research Assistant (2021-2022)

    Next: Animal Care Technician @ Legacy Health Research Institute

  • Laboratory Operations Manager (2021-2022)

    Next: Quality Assurance Specialist @ HAMMOQ Inc

  • Postdoctoral Scientist (2019-2021)

    Next: Postdoctoral Scientist in Hayden Lab @ University of Minnesota

  • Graduate Student (2020-2021)

    Next: Research Assistant in Heilbronner Lab @ University of Minnesota

  • Research Assistant (2019-2021)

    Next: Veterniary Medicine Student @ Royal Veterniary College of University of London (UK)