Advisors
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Dolores Bozovic, Ph.D.
Dolores Bozovic received her PhD in Physics from Harvard University, for her studies of electron transport in carbon nanotubes. She subsequently completed postdoctoral training at Rockefeller University, in the Sensory Neuroscience laboratory. From 2005 onward, she has been at University of California Los Angeles, where she is currently a Professor at the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy and the California NanoSystems Institute.
The Bozovic laboratory focuses on problems at the interface between physics and auditory neuroscience. Her research specializes in nonlinear dynamics of hair cells, understanding the role of chaotic dynamics and inter-cell synchronization in achieving the nanoscale mechanical sensitivity exhibited by the auditory system. The group combines experimental and theoretical approaches to explore the biophysics of hair cells, as well as their interaction with the neural systems that innervate them. The overall goal is to explain how auditory information is extracted from the environment, as well as how signals emanating from the brain control the dynamics of sensory detection.
Postdoctoral Researchers
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Justin Faber, Ph.D.
Throughout graduate school, Justin worked in the Bozovic lab, doing a mixture of theory and experiments. His research focused on understanding the nonlinear and chaotic dynamics of active hair cells, how mechanical coupling influences these dynamics, and how these complex systems achieve such reliable signal detection. Since graduating, he has continued to work in the group as a postdoc, now studying the auditory system of the mosquito. -
Martín Toderi, Ph.D.
Dr. Toderi received his PhD in Physics in 2020 from the National University of Rosario in Argentina. Martín is now a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Bozovic Lab since January 2021 where he studies the dynamics of inner hair cells through optical techniques to elucidate neuronal coding of auditory information. He is particularly interested in high speed fluorescence microscopy and novel imaging techniques with minimum invasive approaches.
Graduate Students
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Chia-Hsi "Jessica" Lin
Jessica Lin obtained her B.S. in Physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara and specialized in condensed matter physics, specifically organic semiconductors and solar cells. She completed her doctoral work at the University of California, Los Angeles where she studied hearing mechanics. Her research in the Bozovic lab focused on the impact of efferent stimulation on the active dynamics of hair cells and the role of efference in protection against noise-induced damage. -
Joseph "Joey" Marcinik
Joey graduated from Saint Vincent College (Pennsylvania) in 2018 with a B.S. in Physics & Mathematics. While there, he studied quasars and galactic-center stars, for his physics major, and a mixture of graph theory and game theory, for his math major. During his second year as a Physics grad student, he joined the Bozovic lab where he continues to research. He models hair cell oscillations in the frog sacculus primarily using nonlinear dynamics, sometimes incorporating stochasticity. -
Dzmitry "Dima" Vaido
Dima Vaido received his B.S. in Physics from Louisiana State University where he studied how cold-atomic gases can be used as an analog model for gravity. He is now a graduate student at the Bozovic Lab where he studies how hair cells encode auditory information and transmit it to neurons.
Undergraduate Students
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Nicholas "Nick" Senofsky
Nick is a senior biophysics major at UCLA from Los Angeles, CA. Nick uses computational models and in vitro experiments to determine how changes in hair cell mechanical coupling may lead to the vestibular symptoms seen in patients with Ménière's Disease.