Dr. Alejandro Akrouh is a postdoctoral research scientist in the Neuro Technology Center (NTC) at Columbia University. He received his undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis, where he majored in biological sciences and minored in humanities. At WashU, he studied the biophysical properties of potassium channels (advised by Dr. Colin Nichols) and investigated how mutations identified in patients alter channel function to cause disease. With the support of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF-GRFP) award, Dr. Akrouh conducted his doctoral work in Dr. Daniel Kerschensteiner’s laboratory at Washington University School of Medicine. There, he dissected the circuit mechanisms that generate and pattern spontaneous developmental waves in the retina and identified and characterized novel inhibitory interneurons. Seeking to understand how retinal signals are transformed downstream to give rise to visual perception and to guide behavior, Alejandro joined the laboratory of Dr. Rafael Yuste. There, he received an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Individual National Research Service Award (NRSA F32) to investigate how learning reconfigures neuronal ensembles in visual cortex and is now leveraging holographic 2-photon optogenetics to interrogate the circuit mechanisms uncovered during his fellowship. Dr. Akrouh is preparing to launch an independent research program that bridges his training in ion channel biophysics, in synaptic and circuit physiology, and in all-optical systems neuroscience to investigate how the nervous system is reconfigured during development, learning, and disease.