Chris Hall

Chris is a PhD student in the Stephenson-Jones and Branco Labs currently working collaboratively with Postdoctoral Fellow Catarina Albergaria to develop a novel navigational decision-making paradigm. Chris and Catarina aim to study how the brain incorporates internal motivational states and external stimuli into decision-making and motor circuitry to select and generate goal-directed behaviours.

Before joining the program, Chris received his bachelor's degree at the University of California, Berkeley in Molecular and Cell Biology. During his time there, he worked in Linda Wilbrecht’s lab, initially studying how pre-pubertal sex hormone manipulations affect behavioural flexibility and anxiety-related behaviours in adulthood. Later, he focused on understanding how dopamine release in the striatum contributes to maintaining a balance between stable and flexible behavioural policies.