Greetings, I am Yiren (Erin)

I am a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University with Dr. Randy Buckner. 

By day, I'm a cognitive neuroscientist decoding how the brain, memory, and music interact through advanced neuroimaging and computational techniques.

But my story with music began long before the lab coats and brain scans. At age 5, my fingers first touched piano keys, beginning a lifelong love affair with musical expression. Three instruments later (and counting!), my musical journey has included everything from choir performances to composing for aspiring singers.

While classmates were choosing majors, I was splitting time between neuroscience lectures and electronic music composition classes. Perhaps inevitably, these worlds collided – now I design and compose the very music used in my own experiments!

I'm the type of researcher who can troubleshoot an fMRI protocol and then go home to mix a track that might end up in next month's memory experiment.

When I'm not in the lab or making music, you'll find me chasing new travel adventures, staying active, or obsessing over the perfect outfit.

Recently, I've been channeling this passion for connecting life science, arts and neuroscience into something bigger. I'm founding Lifetura, a platform that applies what I've learned about the arts' power to enhance memory and learning to help retirement-stage adults stay cognitively engaged and socially connected. It's thrilling to see years of research translate into something that could genuinely improve people's lives.