Hannah Wirtshafter is a systems neuroscientist at Northwestern University in John Disterhoft’s lab, co-advised by Sara Solla, where she studies learning and memory using experimental and mathematical approaches. She received her PhD in biology at MIT working with Matt Wilson. Her research uses experimental and computational techniques to investigate the systems neuroscience of learning, memory, and spatial navigation, in both awake behaving animals and during sleep. Specifically, she focuses on the role of the hippocampus and downstream brain areas, such as the lateral septum, in memory and decision making during spatial tasks, navigation, and conditioning. She is particularly interested in how these areas inform context dependent and independent learning and responses. To answer these questions, she primarily employs in vivo electrophysiology, calcium imaging, animal behavior, and sophisticated mathematical and computational techniques. In her future laboratory, she plans to explore the role of neural circuit dynamics, at both the single-cell and population levels, in tasks that involve high-level sensorimotor integration.