Hiroyuki Kato, Associate Professor
Hiroyuki received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from University of Tokyo where he worked with Dr. Toshiya Manabe to learn electrophysiology. He completed his postdoctoral work with Dr. Jeffry Isaacson in UCSD, where he learned in vivo imaging/recording techniques in awake, behaving mice.
Hiroyuki started the lab in 2017 in the Department of Psychiatry and the Neuroscience Center at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.
Michellee Garcia,
Research Technician
Michellee received her Bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience at Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 2021. At F&M College, she studied the behaviors of various model animals, including turtles and chickadees. She joined the Kato Lab in August 2021.
Hailey Acosta,
Research Technician
Hailey received her bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience and Psychology at Boston University in 2024. At BU, she studied the effects of caffeine in a cellular model of Huntington's disease as well as dopamine's role in altering alcohol preference in fruit flies. She joined the Kato lab in April 2024.
Hiroaki Tsukano, M.D./Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow
Hiroaki received his M.D./Ph.D. at the Department of Neurophysiology and Brain Research Institute, Niigata University in 2011. At Niigata University, he worked with Dr. Katsuei Shibuki to understand the anatomical organization of auditory pathway in the mouse brain. After his career as an assistant professor in the Niigata University, he joined the Kato Lab in April 2019 to study the neural circuits underlying innate auditory behaviors.
Muneshwar Mehra, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow
Muneshwar received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the Indian Institute of Technology, India (IIT-KGP) in 2021. At IIT-KGP, he worked with Dr. Sharba Bandyopadhyay to understand how auditory experience at the earliest stages causes long-term changes in the auditory cortex. His research interest also extends to understanding the role of dopamine in VR- guided motivated behaviors in the hippocampus at Dr. Edward Han’s lab at WashU. Muneshwar joined the Kato lab in March 2023 to understand how the brain perceives and processes complex auditory scenes.
Gates Schneider, Ph.D. Student
Gates received her Bachelor of Science in Behavioral Neuroscience from Northeastern University in 2020. Prior to graduate school, she worked as a research assistant in lab of Dr. Kay Tye at the Salk Institute where she studied social homeostasis and the neural representations of social isolation. She is a rising second year PhD student in the Neuroscience Curriculum at UNC and joined the Kato Lab in April of 2024.
Pranathi Dandu, Undergraduate Student
Pranathi is an undergraduate junior at UNC majoring in Neuroscience and Biostatistics. She joined the Kato Lab in January 2023.
Ananyaa Arvind, Undergraduate Student
Ananyaa is an undergraduate sophomore at UNC majoring in Neuroscience. She joined the Kato Lab in October 2023.
Lyn Dias,
Undergraduate Student
Lyn is an undergraduate sophomore at UNC majoring in Neuroscience. She joined the Kato Lab in October 2023.
Lab Alumni
Amber Kline (PhD student, currently a postdoc at New York University)
Destinee Aponte (research technician, currently a PhD student at Harvard Medical School Neuroscience Program)
Koun Onodera (postdoc, currently Assistant Professor at the National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Japan)
Jose Rodríguez-Romaguera (postdoc, currently Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Randall Ung (MD-PhD student, currently an MD student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Taha Lodhi (undergraduate student, currently an MD student at East Carolina University)
Divya Narayanan (undergraduate student, currently a research technician at Harvard Medical School)
Jason Xie (undergraduate student, currently an MS student at the University of Pennsylvania Science Engineering Program)
Suning Chen (undergraduate student, currently an MS student at the University of California San Diego)