Our People

De-Shaine is a Wu Tsai Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale and President of Black In Neuro. He creates devices to monitor and treat the injured brain for a variety of neurological disorders (stroke, TBI and brain cancers). De-Shaine was part of the founding team in 2020 whilst a PhD student at Imperial College London. He became the organization’s first development director when Black In Neuro incorporated in 2021. De-Shaine is passionate about seeing Black talent thrive in academia and beyond.

Amirah-Iman Hicks, PhD (she/her/hers) is the Secretary of Black In Neuro. She obtained her PhD in Physiology, specialization in neurosciences, from McGill University in 2025 and currently works as the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) advisor for the Pan-Canadian Genomic Library (PCGL) initiative. She is actively involved with her local community as the Academic Program Director of the Canadian Black Scientists Network. Through her work, she aims to champion for increased representation of historically excluded groups in scientific spaces at the local, national and international stages.

Ashley Cunningham earned her B.A. in neuroscience from Columbia University in 2016. She is a Ph.D. candidate at the Icahn School of Medicine, working in the labs of Drs. Ian Maze and Eric Nestler. Her research explores how trauma induces epigenetic changes that affect depression and anxiety risk, focusing on early life stress, histone H3 serotonylation, and paternal transmission of neuropsychiatric traits. Ashley is also passionate about equity in STEM, working to improve access, retention, and representation in science.

Clíona is a cognitive neuroscientist interested in social communication, the parental brain and combining neuroimaging and XR technologies. She currently holds a Yale Science Fellow position in the Psychiatry department and previously held the Kavli Postdoctoral Award for Academic Diversity. Concurrently, she is a co-founder and co-director of programming at Black In Neuro.

Jheannelle Johnson is a Neurodegeneration Computational Fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine and the Development Director of Black In Neuro. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Howard University, with double minors in Chemistry and Psychology. Her work focuses on applying single-cell and spatial multi-omics approaches to investigate cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying selective cell vulnerability in Alzheimer’s disease. Outside of research, she is passionate about expanding access, mentorship, and community engagement in underrepresented groups in neuroscience.

Dr. Paige Greenwood is a Research Consultant at the Ohio State University, executing a prenatal exposure to household air pollution and neurodevelopment study in Ghana. She earned her PhD from the University of Cincinnati and completed a T32 fellowship at Columbia University. She has experience as a Policy Fellow where she led regulatory development and training and technical assistance for 1600 Head Start Programs. Critically, she aims to merge research, community engagement and policy to serve low-income children and families.

Victoria is a data scientist with experience in public health, cognitive neuroscience, and bioinformatics. She joined Black In Neuro in 2021 and now serves as Director of Finance, leading sponsorship, fundraising, and impact reporting with the team. She also developed the Open Science Neuro Hackathon with partners, exploring ethics, bias, computational neuroscience, bioinformatics, and open science through interdisciplinary collaboration locally and internationally.

Betty is a Neuroscience PhD candidate at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. Originally from Ethiopia, she earned her undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University and worked in the lab of Gary Rudnick at Yale University. At Emory, she studies neurological effects of a mutation that causes a genetic disease known as Myotonic Dystrophy Type 1 (DM1). Betty has served as an organizer in Black in Neuro since 2023 and currently co-leads the mentorship program.

Kyndall Nicholas received her B.S. in Biochemistry with a minor in Psychology from Hampton University. She is currently a doctoral student in the neuroscience program at The University of Pennsylvania, studying everyday nutrition as a prophylactic to traumatic brain injury damage. Kyndall is passionate about the accessibility of science education and communication, she loves learning from others, and loves to travel.

Cai, a Massachusetts native, graduated from Boston College in 2019 with a Bachelor's in Sociology. She currently serves as the Administrative Associate for the Ferguson Lab at Boston Children's Hospital and an admin for Black In Neuro. Beyond her professional roles, Cai is also passionate about art, baking, and enjoys spending time with her dog, Mylo.

Yvonne is a PhD student in the Neuroscience and Neurotechnology program at Georgia Institute of Technology studying cancer neurobiology. She got involved with Black in Neuro through the mentorship program as a mentee in the first cohort in 2023. She now serves as support on the BIN Mentorship Committee.

Dr. Asma Bashir is a Public Engagement Manager at King's College London, where she uses her background in academic neuroscience to foster public and community engagement across faculties. In previous roles, she briefly worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the UK Dementia Research Institute, after which she worked for Warner Bros. Discovery as an Inclusion Specialist. Dr Bashir is also the founder of Her Royal Science, an inclusion podcast created to foster conversation and community with international STEM experts.

Darielle received her BS in Biology from Spelman College in 2019 and her MS in Neuroscience from Morehouse School of Medicine in 2020  studying deltaFosB accumulation after sleep deprivation in the lab of Dr. Chris Ehlen. Following her master’s, she worked in the lab of Dr. Sarah Stern at the  Max Planck Florida Institute studying single cell expression of the insular cortex and conditioned feeding behaviors. Currently, she is a neuroscience PhD student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Her work is led by Dr. Jinye Dai with a focus on synaptic mechanisms of social behavior.

A Neuroscience graduate from University College London working in the pharmaceutical industry. Specialising in neurodegenerative diseases models and approaching therapeutic discovery with regenerative medicine and biomaterial fabrication.

Emmanuella is a recent graduate with a Master's in Cancer Biology from the Université de Toulouse III. She also holds a Bachelor's in Neuroscience along with a French minor from UT Austin. In 2021, Emmanuella joined the Black In Neuro organizing team. As Chapters Lead, she aims to create BIN hubs to foster community and a sense of belonging.