Derek is originally from Mount Vernon, New York and he graduated from Manhattan College in 2016 with a double major in history and religious studies. During his time at the Balchandani lab he has worked in projects related to anxiety, PTSD, panic disorder and epilepsy. Recently, he helped design and implement novel and previously validated behavioral and stimulus tasks. Currently, he is working to improve the computing capabilities of the lab and to help enable new, future analytical breakthroughs.