Stella Haffner comes into the NAD PhD programme with an interest in sleep studies and neural entrainment.
Originally from the US, Stella Haffner moved to Scotland at 17 to pursue her studies, including a master’s degree in Experimental Psychology and Research Statistics. Since completing her studies, Stella has been working as a research assistant at Herlev Hospital.
Among a variety research interests, Stella is especially passionate about research in sleep, neural entrainment and the prenatal environment’s impact on offspring neurobiology. During the pre-PhD year, she hopes to identify the methods needed for her PhD project and learn how researchers from different areas in neuroscience approach research questions:
“The NAD fellowship was my first choice programme because of its emphasis on interdisciplinary work and because it provides the opportunity to design a PhD project from scratch. I am grateful to have been awarded this fellowship because I believe these two elements will help strengthen my outlook as an early career researcher”, Stella says.
Stella will do her first rotation in the Kjærby Lab at the University of Copenhagen, working on a project investigating the role of heart rate in predicting sleep microstructures related to memory consolidation in mice.
In her spare time, Stella watches a lot of movies and reads a lot of books to keep up with her media-savvy friends and family.