https://flinkerlab.org/ NYU Langone’s Comprehensive Epilepsy Center offers research training opportunities to medical students, residents, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and clinical fellows.

Fellow, Resident, and Medical Student Research

Fellows, residents, and medical students interested in research opportunities should contact investigators below.

Research Opportunities with Dr. William B. Barr

William B. Barr, PhD, and team study cognitive and behavioral disorders in a variety of conditions, including epilepsy, mild traumatic brain injury, and dementia using neuropsychologic assessment methodology. This methodology can be used effectively in independent projects and in conjunction with data-obtained neuroimaging (structural and functional), fluid analysis (blood and cerebral spinal fluid), and genetics.

Research Opportunities with Dr. Adeen Flinker

In the lab of Adeen Flinker, PhD, they focus on the innately human capacity to perceive and produce language, leveraging rare neurosurgical recording directly from human cortex. The Flinker Lab employs basic and advanced signal processing and machine learning approaches to analyze the collected electrophysiology as well as results of clinical stimulation mapping. They have various projects in the lab spanning clinical–translational to basic research questions in close collaboration with clinicians (epilepsy, movement disorder, and speech–language pathology).

Research Opportunities with Dr. Jacqueline A. French

Jacqueline A. French, MD, and team have several large datasets that can be used by students for analyses. The Human Epilepsy Project (HEP) 1 is a study of newly diagnosed patients with focal epilepsy. We have a large dataset of MRI, EEG, phenotyping, and prospective follow-up, as well as serial patient reported outcomes. HEP 2 is similar but focuses on patients with treatment resistant focal epilepsy. Many students have already published subsets of this collected data, but there are many more ideas for future projects.

Research Opportunities with Dr. Daniel Friedman

Daniel Friedman, MD,, performs research to better understand mortality in people with epilepsy including understanding biomarkers for risk prediction and devices to detect high-risk seizures for alerting and prevention. He also performs observational and interventional studies to identify new treatments for epilepsy and its comorbidities.

Research Opportunities with Dr. Biyu J. He

Biyu J. He, PhD, and team are currently working on understanding the neural basis of perceptual awareness in human subjects and disordered perception in neuropsychiatric patients, such as hallucinations experienced by patients with neurodegenerative disorders.

Research Opportunities with Dr. Anli A. Liu

Anli A. Liu, MD, and team have ongoing projects that trainees can assist with including a questionnaire-based study on epilepsy and employment. Trainees could also assist with cognitive (memory) testing or analyze eye-tracking data.

Research Opportunities with Dr. Andrew J. Michalak

Andrew J. Michalak, MD, works on developing machine learning and AI algorithms to understand EEG signals, and to explore epilepsy surgery outcomes using neuroimaging, signal processing, and epidemiology.

Research Opportunities with Dr. Claude Steriade

The group led by Claude Steriade, MD, focuses on multimodal phenotyping of immune-mediated seizure disorders through various approaches (neuroimaging and clinical characterization) and investigation of potential mediators of neuroinflammation in seizures (immunophenotyping and microbiome). There are opportunities both in short-term retrospective studies and long-term prospective studies for trainees at various levels.

Graduate Student Research

Graduate students who are interested in conducting epilepsy or neural network research are required to select a thesis advisor and do lab rotations. Please consult your school’s program policies and requirements for more information about choosing a lab.

Postdoctoral Research

Individuals interested in a postdoctoral fellowship should contact the laboratory principal investigator to inquire about available positions.