Hi, I’m Ryan Harvey 👋

I’m a Postdoctoral Associate at Cornell University, working under the guidance of Dr. Antonio Fernandez-Ruiz and Dr. Azahara Oliva.

My research explores how neural circuits give rise to behavior and memory. I combine large-scale electrophysiology, closed-loop optogenetics, and computational analysis to understand how the hippocampus organizes experience into lasting memories.

🎓 Academic Path

• Purdue University (B.A., 2014)
  I began my scientific journey at Purdue, where I explored human navigation and memory in virtual environments with Dr. Carol Lawton, and later recorded single-unit hippocampal neurons in freely moving rodents with Dr. Ryan Yoder (Harvey et al., 2018).

• University of New Mexico (M.Sc., 2016; Ph.D.)
  As a Master’s student with Dr. Benjamin Clark, I studied how the anterior thalamus contributes to spatial memory using selective temporary inactivations (Clark & Harvey, 2016; Harvey et al., 2017).

  During my doctoral work, I examined how developmental alcohol exposure impacts hippocampal place cell coding and sharp-wave ripple activity (Harvey et al., 2019; 2020; 2021).

🔬 Current Research

Now in the Fernandez-Ruiz & Oliva Lab, I’m investigating the diversity of ripple-associated cell sequences using:

✅ Closed-loop optogenetics
✅ High-density silicon probe recordings
✅ Advanced analytical tools

This work aims to unravel how hippocampal ripples coordinate memory reactivation, and how we can precisely manipulate them (Harvey et al., 2023; Soula et al., 2023; Karaba et al., 2024).

🛠 Open-Source Tools

I’m passionate about building reproducible, scalable tools for neuroscience research:

• 🧠 neuro_py: My primary tool for analyzing large-scale neurophysiology datasets, with support for spike trains, LFPs, and behavioral analysis.
• 📦 nelpy: A flexible framework for time series analysis of neuronal ensembles.

You can find more of my tools and code on GitHub.

📬 Contact

📧 rh538@cornell.edu