Professional Bio

Daniel is an Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Vanderbilt Brain Institute. His research group develops state-of-the-art brain-computer interfaces and studies the neural computations underlying neuroprosthetic control.

Daniel attended university in his hometown of San Angelo, Texas and graduated from Angelo State University in 2013 with a BS in Physics. He then attended Rice University and earned a PhD in Applied Physics in 2019. His graduate work was with Professor Jacob T. Robinson in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, where he developed micro- and nano-scale tools for monitoring electrophysiology and behavior in millimeter-sized animals.

For his postdoctoral training, Daniel worked with Professors Krishna Jayant and Scott Pluta at Purdue University in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Biological Sciences. While there, he focused on leveraging flexible, transparent neural interfaces combined with multiphoton imaging to study the circuit mechanisms underlying cortical traveling waves. His work has shed light on how traveling waves modulate translaminar cortical circuits during sensory processing.

Daniel’s work has been recognized by several institutions, including the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and National Science Foundation.