Lab members
Karl Farrow, PhD
Group leader
Originally from Toronto, Canada, I pursued my doctoral research with Axel Borst at the Max-Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Munich, Germany. There I focused on dissecting the neural circuits guiding optic flow process in the Blowfly. As a postdoc I worked with Richard H. Masland at Harvard Medical School, then Botond Roska at the FMI in Basel dissecting the neural circuits of the retina that enable each cell-types to encode a different feature of the visual scene.
Frederique Ooms
Lab Manager | Technician
I am born and raised in Leuven, Belgium. I started my professional career at Philip Morris. Here I discovered that my interests are in managing and supporting a laboratory. In 2012 I started to work at the formerm NERF. On the job I accomplished my Felasa certificate and after working for years under the wings of Ilse Eyckmans I got the opportunity to really get to know how a lab needs to work. I was offered me a possibility to take it a step further, to help manage the Farrow lab. My interests are what is happening behind the curtains, where does all the data come from and how can we find it.
Lies Deceuninck
Katja Reinhard, PhD
Chen Li, PhD
Arnau Sans Dublanc, PhD
Laura Hanson, PhD
Postdoc
I was born and raised on Vancouver Island, Canada where I obtained my BSc in Microbiology and Biochemistry at the University of Victoria. I then completed my PhD in Neuroscience in the lab of Gautam Awatramani where I studied circuitry and mechanisms involved in visual processing in the retina. This research made me curious to understand how the retinal signals are being integrated in higher order visual areas to drive behaviors. I joined the Farrow lab to study this process in the superior colliculus and investigate how visually evoked innate behaviours can be modulated across different life stages.
Gioia De Franceschi, PhD
Postdoc
I was born and raised in Italy, and I have always been intrigued by biology and in particular by animal behavior. During my BSc in Molecular Biology at the University of Padua I discovered a passion for the brain, that I pursued with a MSc in Neuroscience at the University of Trieste. There, I joined Davide Zoccolan’s Lab at SISSA to study visual object recognition. I then moved for my PhD to University College London in Sam Solomon’s Lab, where I investigated the functional properties of visual neurons in the mouse superior colliculus and how vision helps mice make instinctive behavioral choices. Fascinated by flexible perception and behavior I decided to join Tania Barkat’s lab at the University of Basel, where I characterized how neuronal responses along the auditory pathway are modulated by behavioral state. I then moved to Santiago Rompani’s Lab at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory to study multisensory integration in the visual thalamus. Wanting to deepen my understanding about how the brain uses sensory information for generating appropriate behaviors, I started a synergistic collaboration with Karl Farrow’s Lab, where I am currently investigating multisensory integration in the early visual system.
FWO postdoctoral fellow
Anna Chrzanowska
Joana Santos
Subhash Chandran
Bram Nuttin
PhD Student
I grew up in Belgium and completed a MSc in Applied Computer Science and a MSc in Artificial Intelligence at KU Leuven. I was first introduced to neuroscience research when working on automated animal tracking in the lab of Dr. Karl Farrow, as part of my thesis in Artificial Intelligence. After my thesis, I decided to transition towards neuroscience and therefore joined Karl Farrow’s lab as a PhD student in 2019. In the lab, I apply and develop machine learning methods to uncover what visual and behavioral information is encoded along the circuitry underlying visually-evoked defensive behaviors. I am currently focused on finding out what behavioral information passes through the superior colliculus and what role collicular cell types have in encoding that information.
Alex Calzoni
PhD Student
I was born and raised in Italy, where I obtained my BSc in Biotechnology at the University of Trento. Although my fondness for neuroscience began during secondary school, my career in this field started during my MSc in Biophysics, Biochemistry and Biotechnology at the KU Leuven. Here, I carried out my thesis project in the laboratory of Prof. Joris de Wit (VIB), where I aimed to map the proteome of specific synapse types in the mammalian brain to elucidate the role of synapse diversity in circuit organization by using a novel CRISPR-based endogenous tagging approach. My interest in the mechanisms governing neural processing and the relationships that link sensory inputs with specific behaviors led me to join the Farrow lab as a PhD student in May 2021. I am currently investigating how visual information is processed by different regions and cell types of the superior colliculus and disseminated to drive innate behaviors.
FWO PhD Fellow (2021–2025)
Chen (Jen) Liu
PhD student
I am from Taiwan and started my neuroscience adventure in the Lab of neural development and stem cell research at the National Yang-Ming University in Taipei, where I studied the molecular basis of brain malformation disease. As I found my interest in understanding how the neural circuits form, integrate information and give proper responses, I’m now going to pursue my PhD at the Farrow the lab to study how and what changes the neural circuitry between young and adult animals in the lower visual field.
Loran Heymans
PhD student
I am originally from Belgium and completed my Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and Biotechnology at the University of Antwerp, where I also participated in the Honours College Program. During my internships at the Bio-Imaging Lab, I investigated sleep changes in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. My growing interest in understanding the molecular mechanisms that govern neural processes led me to pursue a Master’s degree in Neurochemistry and Molecular Neurobiology at Stockholm University. During my thesis project at the lab of Marie Carlén, Karolinska Institutet, I focused on mouse prefrontal cortex neuronal subpopulations targeting various sensory cortices. After continuing as a research assistant at Karolinska, I joined the Farrow lab as a PhD student in 2024, where I am excited to explore innate behaviors in closely related species of Peromyscus and Mus. I will focus on how evolution influenced molecular expression, network activity, and finally behavior.
Jialin Ye
PhD student
I am from China and hold a Master’s degree in Neuroscience from the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. I spent five years at the Brain Cognition and Brain Disease Institute (BCBDI), Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT), where my research in Feng Wang’s lab focused on cell type-specific neuronal circuits in the superior colliculus that govern visually-evoked innate behaviors. While exploring the neural mechanisms underlying flexible behavior, I recognized the need for precise and efficient methods to quantify behavior, which inspired me to shift my focus toward AI-driven approaches. My current goal is to use machine learning techniques to quantify movement/sub-movement level behaviors and map them to large-scale neuronal activity signals, providing deeper insights into the computational and control mechanisms of neural circuits.
Mert Genc
PhD student
I am from Turkey and completed my MSc in Cognitive Science at Bogazici University. During my master’s, I worked in the Behavioral Neuroscience Laboratory, where I studied how connections between the medial prefrontal cortex and basal forebrain contribute to behavior, combining circuit mapping and optogenetic approaches with behavioral experiments. My interest in how neural circuits transform information into behavior led me to join the Farrow lab as a PhD student in 2026. Here, I am excited to investigate the neural circuits underlying innate behavior and to better understand how sensory information is integrated to produce flexible and appropriate behavioral responses.
Thomas Boonen
Jidaa Alkaliouby
Birte Daniels
Rik Luykx
Fernando Fernandez de Cuevas Lopez
Post Doctoral Fellows
Post Doctoral Fellows
Ya-Chien Chan, PhD. Post-Doctoral Fellow 2014 – 2015. Currently Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz.
PhD Students
PhD Students
Daniel De Malmazet, PhD. Graduated November 2017. Currently Post-Doctoral Fellow with Marco Tripodi at MRC Cambridge.
Technical Staff
Technical Staff
Steven Heynderickx. Research Assistant now QA Specialist at Katoen Natie in Antwerp.
Collaborators
Collaborators
- Heather Rice, PhD. Now Assistant Professor at U. of Oklahoma.
- Felix Baier, PhD. Currently Post-Doctoral Fellow with Gilles Laurent at Max Planck Institute for Brain Research.
MSc Students
MSc Students
- Natalia Baimacheva. MSc Student from the University of St. Petersburg (2020 – 2021).
- Rani Vastenavondt. MSc Student from KU Leuven (2020 – 2021) – Teaching Assistant, Dept. of Biology at KU Leuven.
- Li Chen. MSc Student from KU Leuven (2020 – 2021) – PhD Student with Bill Schafer at the MRC in Cambridge and KU Leuven.
- Janne Zimmer. MSc Student from KU Leuven (2020 – 2021).
- Jana Vanvuchelen. MSc Student from KU Leuven (2020 – 2021).
- Dani Lemmons. MSc Student from U. Antwerp. (2019 – 2020) – Senior Lab Specialist with Stefano Brigidi at U. Utah.
- Firdouss Zemmouri. MSc Student from U. Antwerp (2019 – 2020) – PhD Student with Hiroki Asari at EMBL Rome.
- Soraya Paesmans. MSc Student from KU Leuven (2019 – 2020) – Research Associate at Remynd in Leuven.
- Laure Barbier. MSc Student from KU Leuven (2019 – 2020) – MSc Student at KU Leuven.
- Daan Ramens. MSc Student from KU Leuven (2019 – 2020) – Research Technician with Pierre Vanderhaegen at the VIB.
- Benjamin Crevits. MSc Student from KU Leuven (2019 – 2020).
- Chunzhou Wang. MSc Student Groep T, KU Leuven (2019 – 2020).
- Zenhuan Wu. MSc Student from Groep T, KU Leuven (2019 – 2020).
- Nidaa Elsayed. MSc Student Groep, T KU Leuven (2019 – 2020).
- Liuyan Yang. MSc Student Groep T, KU Leuven (2019 – 2020).
- Sybren De Boever. MSc Student from KU Leuven (2019 – 2020).
- Elke Leys. MSc Student from KU Leuven (2019 – 2020).
- Bram Nuttin. MSc Student from KU Leuven (2019 – 2020) – PhD at NERF.
- Julien Shuermans. MSc Student from KU Leuven (2019 – 2020) – AI engineer in Ghent.
- Haien Tang. MSc Student Groep T, KU Leuven. 2018 – 2019.
- Jincheng Ma. MSc Student Groep T, KU Leuven. 2018 – 2019.
- Elras Bolkars. MSc Student (2018 – 2019) – Vision Engineer with Bright River in Amsterdam.
- Cedric Stefens. Master’s student from l’Université libre de Bruxelles – PhD student with Jamie Johnston at Leeds University.
- Cedric Tits. Master’s student from Université Catholique de Louvain.
- Vincent Vestrappen. Master’s student from Groep T KUL.
- Amaury Vanvinckenroye. Master’s student from University of Liege.
BSc Students and Interns
BSc Students and Interns
- Nathan Van Laere. MSc Intern, KU Leuven.
- Ioannis Gkouzionis. Erasmus student, University of Crete, Greece. – PhD student at Imperial College London & Hamlyn Center of Robotics Surgery.
- Natalie McGowan. Intern from Northeastern University.
- Julie Murmann. Intern from Northeastern University – PhD Student at IST, Austria.
- Ilayda Alkislar. Intern from Northeastern University. – Lab Technician in David Ginty’s Lab at Harvard Medical School.
- Carolina Tigre Avelar. Erasmus student. University of Porto, Portugal. – AI Engineer at Image Biopsy Lab in Wien, Austria.
- Marta Pereira Iglesias. Erasmus Student. University of Barcelona, Spain – PhD Student in Achucarro Basque Center for Neuroscience in Bilbao.
- Marton Balogh. Visiting scholar from the University of Pecs, Hungary. – PhD student with Botond Roska at the IOB.
- Quan Do. Intern from Northeastern University. – PhD student in Hasselmo Lab at Boston University, USA.
- Kalil Menezes. Intern from Northeastern University. – Medical School at Boston University.
- Ioannis Moustakis. Erasmus student from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. – ICT Manager in Brussels.
- Maria Roa. Erasmus student from University of Barcelona – Research Assistant with Aleksandra Badura at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam.
- Ares Selles. Erasmus student from University of Barcelona – Research Assistant at Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute in Badalona, Spain.
- Emily Burke. Intern from Northeastern University – Teacher at Southern Dharma Retreat Center, USA.
- Effie Roumania. Erasmus student from University of Patras, Greece – BSc student at University of Patras.
- Amy Kristl. Intern from Northeastern University.
- Leighanne Wang. Intern from Northeastern University.
- Laura Tucker. Summer RVO student from Yale University.
Greeshma Gopinath
Amber Bruynsteen
Sade Adeyemi
Sam Gossens
