Steve is a graduate student at MIT’s Brain and Cognitive Sciences department pursuing a Ph.D. in neuroscience. His work focuses on finding where single memories are located throughout the brain, genetically tricking the brain cells that house these memories to respond to brief pulses of light, and then using these same flickers of light to reactivate, inhibit, and create new memories. The goals of his research are twofold: to figure out how the brain gives rise to the seemingly ephemeral processes of memory; and, to use novel technologies to reverse what happens when specific brain pieces breakdown to impair cognition.
MIT Technology Review article: http://www.technologyreview.com/lists/innovators-under-35/2013/visionary/steve-ramirez/