Nora Brackbill

About Me

Hi, I'm Nora! I'm currently a consultant working for the California State Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee covering issues related to public safety and the judiciary. I started in the Senate as a CCST Science and Technology Policy Fellow covering issues in economic development, taxation and revenues, teacher recruitment and development, and early childhood education. Previously, I received my Ph.D. in Physics from Stanford University, where my research in the Chichilnisky Lab focused on computational approaches to understanding vision. I am also interested in science communication, teaching and outreach. I ran a science news podcast at KZSU, taught a number of physics and neuroscience courses and won a teaching award, and led storytelling and design workshops to help other scientists improve posters and presentations.

Research

I did my Ph.D. in the Chichilnisky Lab at Stanford, where I tried to understand how visual information is processed in the retina.

• Google Scholar Profile

Projects

Beyond Linear Models

How can we use anatomy to build better models of retinal ganglion cells?

Statistics of Natural Scenes

What are the statistics of the natural world, and how does that influence the way neurons encode it?

Population Encoding

Are the neurons in the retina individual encoders, or do they work together to transmit information?

Posters

• ERM 2017 Poster
• FASEB 2016 Poster
• ARVO 2016 Poster

Previous Research

• low-dimensional physics
• quantum dynamics
• quantum information
• photonics
• computational astrophysics

Policy

Hi, I'm Nora! I'm currently a consultant working for the California State Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee covering issues related to public safety and the judiciary. I started in the Senate as a CCST Science and Technology Policy Fellow covering issues in economic development, taxation and revenues, teacher recruitment and development, and early childhood education.

• Senate Budget

Outreach

Goggles Optional

I led the Goggles Optional podcast, where Stanford scientists share their professional and unprofessional opinions on news and developments in the world of science. I was involved for six years, and was the senior producer for three.

CIRS + COGNITIVE TOOLBOX

As a Creativity in Research Scholars at the d.school, my partner Vivian and I developed the Cognitive Toolbox to help graduate students manage their mental health and deal with the ups and downs of PhD life.

Elements

i = 0;

while (!deck.isInOrder()) {
    print 'Iteration ' + i;
    deck.shuffle();
    i++;
}

print 'It took ' + i + ' iterations to sort the deck.';