Erik Justin Courcelles values the freedom and independence of the NAD PhD programme, and he is excited to experience the many opportunities in Danish neuroscience.
Erik Justin Courcelles has a master’s degree in Neuroscience from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Currently, his research interests lie within neural circuits, neural population dynamics and neural mechanisms that generate the higher level cognitive functions of the brain.
This has informed Erik’s choice of his first rotation lab: the Petersen lab at the Department of Neuroscience, University of Copenhagen. Here, he will get a chance to gain familiarity with electrophysiology and data analysis methods:
”I have primarily been in a lab that dealt with neurophysiology, and while everyone else in the lab was working with the physiology, doing recordings and all these different tasks, I was working more on the anatomical side of things. It really sharpened my interests: I want to learn a little bit more about the techniques and methods used to record activity and how to analyse all this data, because to me, that is the most exciting part,” he says.
When asked about what motivated him to apply for the NAD PhD programme, Erik highlights the mobility and exploratory nature of the pre-PhD year:
”I really value the idea of moving from place to place for each step in your career. I did my bachelor’s degree in Oslo and my master’s degree in Trondheim, and I also did an exchange semester at UC Berkeley in California. I try to move around to avoid getting stuck, trying to learn from how people think differently. I feel like that makes a better researcher out of you,” Erik says and adds:
”There are so many fantastic research groups in Denmark that are available for rotations and cooperation. I think experiencing how groups operate differently first hand will be beneficial in regards to understanding how I work best. I am hoping to be influenced in a way where I can grab some parts from each lab and become a greater researcher in the process.”