Sumit Nanda

Seeking a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher position in the field of Computational Neuroscience, specifically focusing on the domain of single neuron structure, local circuits, large scale network connectivity and their relations with information processing. Nine year experience in Neuroinformatics and Computational Neuroscience. Senior member of NeuroMorpho.Org, the largest open repository of neural reconstructions. Extensive experience in neuron reconstruction, editing, analysis and modelling. Experienced in building biologically realistic simulation of neuron structure while working closely with experimentalists, within a collaborative research environment.

• Graduate Teaching Assistant at Troy University (2010-11), responsibilities included instructing Undergraduates in labs, lab maintenance, exam proctoring etc.
• Taken Lectures in undergraduate and graduate level Neuroscience courses at George Mason University.
• Mentored fifteen students in Neuromorphology research, including Graduate, Post-bach, undergraduate and high-school students.
• Guided the NeuroMorpho.Org data editing team solve several neural reconstruction related issues.

• OLLI Mason Best Graduate student award 2016
• Provost Summer Research Fellowship Award 2017
• Dissertation Completion Grant award 2018
• Reviewer for the Journal Neuroinformatics
• Reviewer for Journal STAR Protocols
• Member of Society for Neuroscience (SfN) since 2014
• Vice President of the Neuroscience Graduate Student Organization 2016-18
• One of the curators of the SWC format. (see, swc-specification.readthedocs.io/en/latest/swc.html)

• Invited Talk at the BigNeuron Manual Annotation Workshop 2015, Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, Washington on Comparison of local and global rule based dendritic growth models.
• Presented at the BigNeuron Janelia Hackathon 2015, Janelia Research Campus, Ashburn, Virginia on Bench testing automated reconstruction algorithms on fruit fly neurons.
• Online Presentation at the BICCN morphology Working Group Meeting 2021 on SWC format Specifications.
• Dynamic Poster presentation in SfN 2016, San Diego, California on Design and Implementation of multi-signal, time-lapse digital reconstructions of neuronal morphology.
• Virtual Poster presentation at the BRAIN Initiative meeting, Bethesda, Maryland on A Universal conversion service of digital reconstructions into the SWC standard community format.
• Poster presentation in SfN 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018.
• Presented at the Center for Neural Informatics, Structures and Plasticity (GMU) in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019.

First Authored Publications

1. Nanda S., Allaham M., Bergamino M., Polavaram S., Armañanzas R., Ascoli G., Parekh R.: Doubling up on the Fly: NeuroMorpho.Org Meets Big Data. Neuroinformatics, 13(1): 127–129. doi: 10.1007/s12021-014-9257-y (2015).

2. Nanda S., Das R., Cox D., Ascoli G.: Structural Plasticity in Dendrites: Developmental Neurogenetics, Morphological Reconstructions, and Computational Modeling. Contemporary Clinical Neuroscience, Springer (2017) (Book Chapter).

3. Nanda S., Das R., Bhattacharjee S., Cox D., Ascoli G.: Morphological determinants of dendritic arborization neurons in Drosophila larva. Brain Structure and Function, 223:1107-20, doi:10.1007/s00429-017-1541-9 (2018).

4. Nanda S., Chen H., Das R., Bhattacharjee S., Cuntz H., Torben-Nielsen B., Peng H., Cox D., De Schutter E., Ascoli G.: Design and implementation of multi-signal and time-varying neural reconstructions. Sci. Data 5:170207. doi:10.1038/sdata.2017.207 (2018).

5. Nanda S., Bhattacharjee S., Cox D., Ascoli G: Distinct relations of microtubule and actin filaments on dendritic architecture. iScience 23(12):101865. doi:10.1016/j.isci.2020.101865 (2020)

6. Nanda S., Bhattacharjee S., Cox D., Ascoli G: An imaging analysis protocol to trace, quantify, and model multi-signal neuron morphology. STAR Protocols 2(2): 100567. doi: 10.1016/j.xpro.2021.100567 (2021)

7. Nanda S., Das R., Lottes E., Cox D., Ascoli G.: Understanding the Mechanisms of Dendritic Arbor Development: Integrated Experimental and Computational Approaches. Springer (2022) (In Press, Book Chapter)

Co-authored Journal Articles

1. Ascoli G., Maraver P., Nanda S., Polavaram S., Armananzas R.: Win-win data sharing in neuroscience. Nature Methods, 14(2):112-6 (2017). doi: 10.1038/nmeth.4152 (2017)

2. Das R., Bhattacharjee S., Patel A., Harris J., Bhattacharya S., Letcher J., Clark S., Nanda S., Iyer E., Ascoli G., Cox D.: Dendritic Cytoskeletal Architecture Is Modulated by Combinatorial Transcriptional Regulation in Drosophila melanogaster. Genetics, 207(4), 1401-1421. doi: 10.1534/genetics.117.300393 (2017).

3. Das R., Letcher J., Harris J., Foldi I., Nanda S., Bobo H., Mihály J., Ascoli G., Cox D.: Formin3 regulates dendritic architecture via microtubule stabilization and is required for somatosensory nociceptive behavior. Development, 148 (16): dev187609. doi: 10.1242/dev.187609 (2021)

4. Akram M., Nanda S., Maraver P., Armañanzas R., Ascoli G.: An open repository for single-cell reconstructions of the brain forest. Sci. Data 5: 180006, doi: 10.1038/sdata.2018.6 (2018).

5. Bhattacharjee S, Lottes E.N., Nanda S., Golshir A., Patel A, Ascoli G., Cox D: PP2A phosphatase regulates cell-type specific cytoskeletal organization to drive dendritic diversification. biorxiv.org, doi: 10.1101/2022.03.07.483285 (2022)

6. Manubens-Gil L. et al: BigNeuron: A resource to benchmark and predict best-performing algorithms for automated reconstruction of neuronal morphology. biorxiv.org, doi: 10.1101/2022.05.10.491406 (2022)

Manuscripts soon to be submitted

1. Influence of microtubule and F-actin on dendritic Geometry (Expected Submission: August 2022).

2. Influence of molecule Bedwarfed in dendritic cytoskeletal architecture (Expected Submission: July 2022).

3. A Universal conversion service of digital reconstructions into the SWC standard Community Format (Expected Submission: August 2022).

1) Dr. Giorgio A. Ascoli, University Professor

Department of Bioengineering, George Mason University

Founding director of the Center for Neural Informatics, Structures, and Plasticity

Email: ascoli@gmu.edu

2) Dr. Daniel N. Cox, Professor

College of Arts & Sciences, Georgia State University

Director of the Neuroscience Institute, Director of the Center for Neuromics

Email: dcox18@gsu.edu

3) Dr. Michael Pritz, Adjunct Professor

Department of Bioengineering, University of Utah

Director, DENLABS (www.denlabs.com)

Email: michael.pritz@denlabs.com