 | Julie Miller, B.A, Ph.D. – Julie is an Associate Tenured Professor of Neuroscience and Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. Miller bio | |
 | Reed Bjork – Reed is a Neuroscience Ph.D. student who joined the Miller laboratory in the fall of 2022 conducting studies on neuropathology in a finch model of Parkinson’s vocal deficits. | |
 Michelle Gordon – Michelle is an undergraduate student majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Arizona. Her projects focus on analyzing age-related and Parkinson’s Disease related changes in the brains of adult male zebra finches as a model for understanding aging vocalizations in humans. She joined the Miller laboratory in the summer of 2021 through the support of two University of Arizona programs – the Border Latino & American Indian Summer Exposure to Research and Arizona’s Science, Engineering, and Math Scholars. | ||
 Sydrah Damir – Sydrah is an undergraduate student in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science who joined the Miller laboratory in January of 2022. Sydrah has been working on vocal analyses in finch and mouse animal models of Parkinson’s disease and received the College of Science Galileo award in 2023. | ||
 Famesh Patel – Famesh is an undergraduate student in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science who joined the Miller laboratory in January of 2022. Famesh has been working on vocal analyses in finch and mouse animal models of Parkinson’s disease and characterization of brain pathology. In 2024, Famesh received two research grants – the Dept of Neuroscience Hildebrand fellowship and the University of Arizona Honors College undergraduate team mini-grant. | ||
 Arpita Gulati – Arpita is an undergraduate student in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science who joined the Miller laboratory in January of 2023. She has been working on vocal analyses in a finch model of Parkinson’s disease. In 2024, Arpita received the Honors College Research and Creativity Award. | ||
 Adriana Thompson – Adriana is an undergraduate student in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science who joined the Miller laboratory in January of 2023. She worked on vocal analyses in a finch model of Parkinson’s disease and completed her senior honors thesis In May 2024 focused on evaluating vocal measurements used in screening for Parkinson’s disease in human subjects. | ||
 Madeleine Daly – Madeleine is an undergraduate student in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science who joined the Miller laboratory in January of 2024. She has been working on vocal analyses in a finch model of Parkinson’s disease and learning about neuropathological characterization. In 2024, Maddie received the Honors College Research and Creativity Award. |
Brian Dominguez, B.S. – Brian received his undergraduate degree from the University of Arizona in Anthropology and Human Biological Sciences in 2019. He was a Research Technician with the Miller lab from June 2022-January 2024. Brian carried out laboratory management including bird care. His research focused on characterizing neuronal firing patterns underlying vocal dysfunction in a zebra finch model of Parkinson’s disease, and he was lead author on a Society for Neuroscience poster presentation in Nov., 2023 and has a manuscript in preparation as of 2024.
 | Stephanie Munger, B.S. – Stephanie is a Senior Research Specialist with over twenty years of laboratory experience working in different animal models using a variety of different techniques. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin in River Falls. In the Miller laboratory, she contributed to all research projects and management of our finch colony. | |
 | Lisa So, PharmD., Ph.D. – Lisa received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Arizona and joined the Miller laboratory in the spring of 2015 for her Neuroscience Ph.D. She published two first-author manuscripts from her dissertation work (see Publications tab) focused on social-context dependent differences in molecular pathways dedicated to birdsong. She received a University of Arizona Marshall Foundation Dissertation Fellowship in spring 2020 and successfully defended her dissertation in April of 2020. She is currently working at Roche Biosciences in Tucson, AZ. | |
 | César Medina, B.S., Ph.D. – César received his B.S. in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science from the University of Arizona with minors in Psychology and Philosophy and his Ph.D. in Neuroscience in December of 2022. He joined the Miller lab to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying normal vocal production in the zebra finch songbird and how these mechanisms are altered in Parkinson’s disease and has one publication thus far from his dissertation work (see Publications tab). He is personally interested in understanding how individual differences contribute to learning and memory with a special focus on the effects of environment, stress, and personality traits on neural mechanisms underlying learning and memory. He received a University of Arizona Marshall Foundation Dissertation Fellowship. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Maya Opendak at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. | |
 | Kathy Dillon, B.A. – Kathy worked in the laboratory as a Research Technician. She was involved in characterizing changes in brain activity that accompany vocal dysfunction in a finch model of Parkinson’s Disease. | |
 | Joshua Ritter, B.A. – Josh received his bachelor’s degree (B.S.) in Speech and Hearing Sciences (May 2016) and B.A. in film and television (May 2017) from the University of Arizona. In the Miller laboratory, he worked on acoustic analysis of birdsong and studies of immediate early gene expression in Area X, a song-dedicated nucleus in the zebra finch basal ganglia, associated with hearing-dependent song learning and maintenance. Josh is Creative Manager at Sustainable Imagination in Los Angeles, CA. | |
 | Kendall Church – Kendall received her bachelor’s degree in Speech and Hearing Sciences from the University of Arizona in May of 2017, and her Master’s in the Speech Language Pathology Program in May of 2019. In the Miller laboratory, she conducted acoustic analysis of birdsong in a finch model of parkinsonian vocal deficits. Kendall is currently working as a speech-language pathologist for the Maricopa Unified School District. | |
 | Joanna Eckhardt – Joanna received her B.S. degree with Honors in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science from the University of Arizona in May of 2021. She joined the Miller lab in August of 2019 to investigate the genetic basis of vocal dysfunction associated with Parkinson’s Disease using the zebra finch songbird and will be a co-author on an upcoming manuscript submission on the gene targets of the disease pathology. She is a Neuroscience Ph.D. student at the University of California-San Diego. | |
 | Kelly Hsu – Kelly Hsu joined us for the summer of 2018 following her sophomore year at Wellesley College in Wellesley, MA. She collaborated with graduate student Lisa So on optimizing protocols for immunohistochemical detection of immediate early genes in Area X neuronal cell-types. She graduated from Wellesley College in May of 2021 and is working at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. | |
 | Eddie Vargas – Eddie received his B.S. degree with Honors in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science from the University of Arizona in May 2021 with minors in Spanish and Biochemistry. Eddie joined the Miller lab to investigate how vocal motor pathways are affected in a zebra finch model of Parkinson’s disease, and he is second author on a finch model of parkinsonian-like vocal changes due to alpha-synuclein overexpression (see Publications tab). Eddie worked as a Medical Scribe at Tucson Medical Center and is currently a medical student in the University of Arizona College of Medicine program. | |
 | Naya Ibrahim – Naya received her B.S. degree with Honors in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science from the University of Arizona in May of 2021. She was supported by the Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) program. While in the Miller laboratory, she worked on evaluating changes in vocal timing in a finch model of Parkinson’s Disease as well as quantifying effects of optogenetic manipulation on dopaminergic brain pathways involved in social-context dependent differences in birdsong. Naya is currently employed in a research lab in Maryland and plans to pursue graduate school in biomedical sciences. | |
| Ericka Garcia – Ericka was an undergraduate student majoring in microbiology at San Diego State University who worked in the Miller laboratory in the summer of 2021 supported by the University of Arizona UROC Minimizing Health Disparities program. Her research project involved analyzing birdsong for natural age-related changes. | ||
 | Areen Badwal – Areen received her B.S. degree with honors from the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program in May of 2019. She worked in the Miller laboratory from June 2016-August 2019 supported by multiple research awards: Undergraduate Biology Summer Research Program, Neuroscience & Cognitive Science Summer Fellowship, second place poster in Biological Sciences at the Microscopy Society of America conference in August of 2019), and two-time winner of the College of Science Galileo Scholarship. She is first author on two publications that draw parallels between aging human voice and finch song changes with age (see Publications tab). Areen received her MD degree at Creighton University School of Medicine and will be joining Mayo Clinic in Phoenix for her anesthesiology residency. | |
 | Stefano DiCenso – Stefano received his B.S. degree from the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science program in May of 2019. Stefano worked in the Miller laboratory from August 2017-May 2019 investigating dopaminergic mechanisms involved in parkinsonian vocal motor deficits. Stefano is currently in the MD Program at Case Western Medical School in Ohio. | |
| Hana Kim, Justine Devaul, Sam Gibbon, Walid El Boukhari, and Aaryan Mandale were undergraduate students in the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science major that worked in the Miller lab in 2023 on vocal analyses in animal models of Parkinson’s disease. |