#SoCaltech: Aditya Nair

“I think Caltech is a place where boundaries don't exist between different disciplines; you are actively encouraged to go talk to your colleague in computer vision or your colleague who's a molecular biologist. And I think that's because there are so few of any given type of scientist here that we don't have a large community of just people who are molecular biologists or just people who are computer scientists. You are forced in some sense to embark on this boundary-breaking exercise. That interaction has led to huge dividends, both within my own research and in the broader scheme of everything Caltech does.

My work has been centered around bringing computational and physics-informed perspectives into the study of emotions. My advisor, David Anderson, and members of his lab have been working for many years to understand how the brain creates innate behaviors like mating and aggression. Building upon insights from the group’s previous studies, my research employed machine learning techniques to uncover the hidden neural signals that encode the persistence and escalation of aggression and arousal.

One challenge about publishing research at the intersection of distinct fields is that you’re never enough of a computer scientist for the computer scientists, and you’re never enough of a biologist for the biologists. But by persevering at that intersection and continuing to tackle fundamental questions in neuroscience with innovations in AI, I’ve been able to make an impact that now spans three papers in Nature and three in Cell in collaboration with many incredible scientists at Caltech.

The people I’ve met here are all experts in their specific fields, but it’s a very special experience when we work toward a common goal of understanding how the brain works. My hope is that I can continue to be part of an institution like Caltech, where those boundaries between disciplines don't exist, and people are both ambitious and driven but also curious and humble enough to step outside their expertise and learn from diverse scientific perspectives.”

Aditya Nair (PhD ’24) is an incoming Nanyang Assistant Professor at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and a principal investigator at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology of the Agency of Science, Technology and Research in Singapore. While at Caltech, he co-founded the Chen Institute Data Science and AI for Neuroscience Summer Schools, which teaches researchers how to develop and apply computational techniques in neuroscience. He also served as the resident associate for Blacker House and mentored eight undergraduate researchers. In his future work, Nair aims to redefine the way we conceive of and treat mental health disorders by drawing on insights from computation and dynamical systems research.

#SoCaltech is an occasional series celebrating the diverse individuals who give Caltech its spirit of excellence, ambition, and ingenuity. Know someone we should profile? Send nominations to magazine@caltech.edu.