Dr. Marielena Sosa is a postdoctoral scholar in the laboratory of Dr. Lisa Giocomo at Stanford University School of Medicine. Her current research focuses on the neural dynamics of spatial navigation and reward memory in the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex. She earned her Bachelor’s of Science in neurobiology from Harvard University and completed her PhD in neuroscience with Dr. Loren Frank at the University of California, San Francisco. In her PhD work, Dr. Sosa used multi-region electrophysiology in behaving rats to study interactions between brain areas during spatial learning, uncovering how separate neuronal networks across the dorsal hippocampus, ventral hippocampus, and nucleus accumbens may store specific elements of experience. As a Helen Hay Whitney postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Sosa applied two-photon calcium imaging in mice to investigate the neural population dynamics that amplify reward information in spatial memories. As a BRAIN Initiative investigator, her research combines calcium imaging, high-density electrophysiology, and computational techniques to understand how neural circuits flexibly shape the information stored in memory according to cognitive and behavioral demands.