Vicente J. Parot

Dissertation Title:  All-Optical Neurophysiology Using High-Speed Wide-Area Optical Sectioning

PhD Dissertation Advisor:  Dr. Adam E. Cohen, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology

I'm a Chilean engineer who, as a graduate student, worked with Adam Cohen towards all-optical mapping of neuronal function in the brain. For my dissertation research, we probed the excitability and synaptic connectivity of single neurons across the mouse brain, and compared how their function is modulated by pharmacological perturbation across different brain regions and cell types. To enable this exploration, we used pairs of spectrally orthogonal optogenetic actuators with genetically encoded voltage or calcium reporters, and we developed Hadamard microscopy for high speed ultra-widefield optical sectioning of brain tissue. I was also affiliated to the MIT HST MEMP program. Outside the Lab I enjoyed spending time with family, hiking, sailing, skiing, stargazing, and many others. 

Currently, I am an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Biological and Medical Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (https://ingenieriabiologicaymedica.uc.cl/en/people/faculty/799-vicente-parot). My research Lab (https://parotlab.github.io/) develops computational imaging tools to study neuroscience and to advance medical microendoscopy. I trained as undergraduate student at Catholic University of Chile with Pablo Irarrazaval, as graduate student at Harvard with Adam Cohen, and as a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital with Brett Bouma. I joined Catholic University in 2020, where I also teach Biomedical Engineering Design and Electro-Optics.