The MANDA Lab Odyssey

On June 30, 2026, I will complete 5 years of running a human memory research lab. Here is a summary of our research efforts so far and vision for the upcoming 5 years. Overview of our research program Our main area of focus is human memory. However, we are investigating memory at multiple levels: 1) Memory at the stimulus level (averaged across many people)— memorability 2) Memory at the neurocognitive mechanistic level— temporal context and event segmentation 3) Neural propagating waves as the basis for multiscale neuronal communication (and therefore, cognition)   in the brain. Figure 1. An overview of our program (thanks to ChatGPT) for those without the patience to read the text (written without ChatGPT). :)  1) Memorability We have developed a body of work describing what makes experiences memorable. For instance, the word " PINEAPPLE " may be more memorable to people in general, regardless of their individual memory capacities, than a word like " FOOT . "  ...

On June 30, 2026, I will complete 5 years as faculty in Indian academia. Here are some quick reflections. The good (great) The students. With its population, India is blessed with plenty of talent. Finding the right people to nurture and to see them develop into well-rounded scientists ready for the next step is a privilege that words cannot truly express. Now, the students we train are quite unlike the students who end up in the best universities in the US or elsewhere. These are people who haven't had that kind of exposure. For example, people who get admitted to PhD programs in the US typically already have significant research experience with a few publications to their name. So it is especially fulfilling when our students get into top PhD programs or do well otherwise after a stint in the lab. Our PhD scholars tend to start from scratch, and that also requires significant early investment of time for training the basics. Most of them are ambitious and passionate about what t...