Originally from Poland and having completed her university education in the Netherlands, Julia Czurylo is no stranger to changes of environment and moving where she needs to be to get the most relevant research experience.
Julia Czurylo completed her master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences with a specialisation in Neuromodulation from Maastricht University in 2023. Broadly, Julia is interested in neuromodulation and psychiatric disorders. For her master’s thesis in the Palner Lab at the Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Southern Denmark, Julia worked with chemogenetic manipulation and investigated the effectiveness of psilocybin treatment in the context of obsessive compulsive disorder. She continued work in the lab as a research assistant after completing her thesis.
Julia will be conducting her first rotation at the Kjærby lab at Center for Translational Neuromedicine, University of Copenhagen:
“I was thinking about going into sleep research because I find closed loop neuromodulation very interesting, and sleep has some patterns that might allow me to design a closed loop and discover new markers,” Julia says. During her first rotation, she hopes to be able to try her hand at fiber photometry as well.
For her later rotations, Julia is interested in exploring computational neuroscience methods, with the hope of learning some basic concepts to implement in neuromodulation techniques. In addition, she would like to see how clinically oriented non-invasive neuromodulation research is conducted.
Originally from Poland and having completed her university education in the Netherlands, Julia is no stranger to changes of environment and moving where she needs to be to get the most relevant research experience. As someone who is still new to the Danish neuroscience research community, she appreciates the opportunities NAD provides to strengthen her network:
“I find it really cool that the NAD forms a community. It is especially nice if you are new to Denmark and just coming into the country. I have already met so many amazing people, and the new fellows and the fellows from last year socialise a lot already. You also get to meet so many supervisors that you would not normally meet during the pre-PhD year,” Julia explains.
Julia loves neuroscience because it allows her to think creatively and be curious, and the opportunity to design her own PhD project was a driving factor in her decision to apply for the NAD PhD programme:
“I am excited about being trusted so much to actually design my own project, brainstorm with supervisors and collaborate with different people,” Julia says.