Julien is a Southern-Californian born scientist and engineer. From a young age he has been fascinated by the intersection of physical processes and consciousness. This, along with a desire to use technology to combat neural disorders, led him to the Bioneingineering department at the University of Washington - Seattle, where he is currently a PhD student in the Neural Engineering lab of Prof. Yazdan-Shahmorad. He researches experimental and computational methods to optimize brain stimulation for rehabilitative functional neural rewiring. Specifically, he conducts experiments using large-scale optogenetic interfaces on clinically translatable models, and uses interpretable machine learning models to investigate the relationship between stimulation and resulting brain dynamics.

In his free time, Julien enjoys travelling, skiing, backpacking, reading, cooking, and lifting weights. He has visited over 25 countries and speaks 3 languages. He likes eating sushi, ramen, and smoked meats. His favorite quote is by Henry David Thoreau, and goes:

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan -- like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.

Academics

• Bioengineering (Neural Engineering Track) PhD, University of Washington 2023
• Physics BA, UC Berkeley 2017
• Cognitive Science (Computational Modeling Concentration) BA, UC Berkeley 2017