Mark A Nicholas

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About me

In September of 2025, I graduated with a PhD from the Yttri Lab in the Department of Biological Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, where I am currently finishing some projects as a postdoc. My research interests are centered on how the brain makes decisions and how those decisions can be executed via movement.

I previously trained with Dr. Betsy Murray at the National Institute of Mental Health studying cortical and subcortical contributions to learning, value and decision making. I graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a Bachelor's degree in Neuroscience where I trained with Dr. Sandra Kuhlman (current faculty at University at Buffalo) studying functional plasticity in the visual cortex.

I am passionate about scientific education and outreach. Both in lab and in the classroom I try to get students to master the material by learning to solve the problem at hand. From 2022 to 2024, I was the course instructor for Advanced Systems Neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon.

Outside of science I enjoy cooking, watching and playing soccer and playing with my dog Woody.