Ayan S. Mandal, PhD, is a medical student and neuroscientist at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to medical school, he received a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to pursue a PhD at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, where he wrote a thesis on network neuroscience and brain tumors. Ayan graduated from Georgetown University in 2018, where he majored in Neurobiology and Physics. His research has been presented at several national and international conferences and published in multiple peer-reviewed journals.  He is also the author of A Stethoscope for the Brain, a book about proactive strategies to prevent brain diseases. When he’s not watching medical school lectures, doing research, or writing, Ayan likes to curate party playlists, cook new recipes, and lift weights.