diyabasrai@gmail.com # Diya Basrai Neuroscience PhD student interested in the neural basis of movement through experimental and computational approaches ## Education #### Northwestern University (2022-present) * PhD student, Interdepartmental Neursocience #### University of California, San Diego (2015-2019) * B.S., magna cum laude, Physiology and Neuroscience ## Research Experience #### PhD Student, Miri/Glaser labs (2023-present), T32 Training Fellow (2025-Present) * Examining thalamocortical interactions underlying naturalistic movement * Conducting large-scale neural recordings and perturbations during mice behavior * Receipient of T32 Training Grant (2025) #### Research Tech, Tresch Lab (2020-2022) * Applying brain-machine interfaces to restore walking in rats with spinal cord injury #### Undergrad Researcher, Systems Neural Engineering Lab (2018-2020) * Created the [autoLFADS](https://snel-repo.github.io/autolfads/) tutorial, explaining how to use a custom deep learning tool to analyze neural activity data. ## Publications/Preprints/Conferences * **Diya Basrai**, ..., Andrew Miri, Joshua Glaser. (2025) Constraining inference of across-region interactions using neural activity perturbations, [BioRxiv](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.20.689584v1) Under review at Nature Neuroscience * Amy Kristl, ..., **Diya Basrai**..., Andrew Miri (2025). Interactions between motor cortical forelimb regions and their influence on muscles reorganize across behaviors, [Nature Communications](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-65381-z) * Natalie Koh, ..., **Diya Basrai**..., Andrew Miri (2025) Distributed influence on primary motor cortex preceding self-initiated movement, (Under review at Nature Communications) * Akiko Saiki-Ishikawa, Mark Agrios, Sajishnu Savya, Adam Forrest, ..., **Diya Basrai**..., Andrew Miri. (2025) Hierarchy between forelimb premotor and primary motor cortices and its manifestation in their firing patterns, [eLife](https://elifesciences.org/articles/103069) * Alex Burton..., **Diya Basrai**..., Matthew Tresch, Philipp Gutruf. (2023) Fully implanted battery-free high power platform for chronic spinal and muscular functional electrical stimulation, [Nature Communications](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-43669-2) * Mohammad Reza Keshtkaran, Andrew R. Sedler, ..., **Diya Basrai**..., Chethan Pandarinath (2022) A large-scale neural network training framework for generalized estimation of single-trial population dynamics, [Nature Methods](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-022-01675-0) * **Diya Basrai**, ..., Joshua Glaser, Matthew Tresch. (2022) Aligning Neural Activity Recorded from Rats during Locomotion Across Time And Subjects, [poster](./media/sfn22poster.pdf) at SFN 2022 * **Diya Basrai**, ..., Matthew Tresch. (2021) Using DeepLabCut To Predict Locations of Subdermal Landmarks From Video, [poster](./media/dlcposter.pdf) at NIH's BRAIN Initiative Meeting 2021 and [conference paper](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-20470-8_29) at Living Machines 2022 conference ## Teaching Experience #### Teaching Assistant at Northwestern University (2024-present) * TA for two quarters, teaching undergraduate neuroscience courses (systems neuroscience, human genetics) #### Teaching Assistant at University of California, San Diego (2018-2019) * TA for four quarters teaching undergraduate biology courses (molecular biology x3, comparative physiology) * Received [>90% recommendation](./media/ia_evaluation.pdf) from students in all quarters teaching #### Miscellaneous * Teaches Stand-up 101 @ The Revival Theater * Gave lecture to Walter Payton Prep School on causality as part of outreach program ## Other * Stand-up comic, recently released [comedy special](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_IceD5ij1o) * Headline contributor for The Onion, sample work [here](https://dbasrai.github.io/onion)