Dan received his B.S in applied physics and electrical engineering from Yale University in 2008. He then joined the lab of Prof. Harry Atwater at Caltech for his Ph.D in applied physics. At Caltech, Dan developed new solar cell technologies. During his Ph.D, Dan became fascinated by the brain. After he defended in 2013, Dan decided to turn his fascination into his career. He moved to the HHMI Janelia Research Campus for postdoctoral training in the lab of Dr. Vivek Jayaraman. At Janelia, Dan characterized a head direction system in the fly brain. This system is similar to the head direction system found in mammals, birds, and fish. While head direction systems had previously been studied at a high level, Dan was able to identify all of the neurons involved in the fly head direction system and to characterize the functional roles of many of them. Dan is excited to continue to develop and apply approaches to characterize the computational units of the brain at UCSC. When not puzzling over neural circuits in the brain, Dan can often be found exploring the great outdoors with his dog, Loki.