Daniel Welch

I have been a PhD student in the Tripodi lab since October 2023. I previously completed a Biochemistry BSc at Imperial College London, including a dissertation on the structure of a sodium-driven ATP synthase using cryo-EM. During my studies, I interned in the Rabinowitch lab at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, exploring how novel electrical synapses could rewire the C. elegans connectome and restore circuit function after damage, an experience that drew me toward systems neuroscience.

I now study how spatial attention is governed: what drives attention to some locations in space but not others. I focus on a region called the superior colliculus, asking how its functional circuit organisation constrains where attention can be directed. To do this, I combine in-house behavioural assays with in vivo recordings (silicon probes/Neuropixels), calcium photometry, viral circuit mapping, and chemo- and optogenetic manipulations.