Biological grounding
Cells receive, integrate, and pass signals through networks. Studying those mechanisms keeps my ideas about learning and memory grounded in biology.
Hi, I’m
Jonathan.
How understanding is built.
From how we think to how we investigate.
I want to study how understanding is built, from neural mechanisms and cognitive processes to the tools people use to learn, investigate, and keep track of changing ideas.
01 / SELECTED WORK
Learning, memory,
and evidence in practice.
01
FIGMA V.1 / EARLY, PRE-PIVOT MOCKUP
A paper becomes part of a learner’s intellectual trail.
BREADCRUMBS / INTELLECTUAL TIMELINE CONCEPTINTELLECTUAL NOTEBOOK · DEVELOPING
Breadcrumbs
An intellectual notebook for underclassmen and high-school students: papers, notes, and annotations connected along a timeline of developing questions.
- My work
- Concept development, customer discovery, and an early Figma mockup; the notebook is still in development.
- What changed
- The focus moved from generating research answers to preserving a learner’s intellectual journey.
EARLY V.1 MOCKUP · PRE-PIVOT DIRECTION
The pictured prototype predates the current notebook concept.
02
MEMORY MISSION / TIMELINE LAB
Simonides of Ceos
Simonides anchors the method of loci legend: memory becomes a spatial art of placing images in ordered locations.
A collapsed hall becomes the origin myth for reconstructing memory through spatial positions.
ADAPTED DEVELOPMENT PREVIEWSource · private repository ↗
INITIATIVE · ONGOING
Memory Mission
Work with Ben Kellum on making memory research more approachable through education and public engagement.
- My work
- Exploring modular timeline interfaces: connected entries, branching context, and paths through source material.
- Design lesson
- A timeline can retain the context behind a question, not just the order of events. These experiments inform Breadcrumbs.
TIMELINE PROTOTYPE → INTELLECTUAL NOTEBOOK
A development direction, not a finished product.
03Study
IDEA → WIREFRAMES → PROTOTYPES
Study
Party.
PRODUCT EXPLORATION · FIGMA
Study Party
An exploration of how students learn together, developed through Scarlet Pitch and a sequence of Figma wireframes and prototypes.
- My work
- Pitching the concept and exploring the experience through wireframes and prototypes.
- What I learned
- Explaining the problem clearly comes before committing to a solution.
DESIGN ARTIFACTS · WIREFRAMES / PROTOTYPES
04
SOURCE CHECK / CITATION CORETS
CLAIM
“A source supports this sentence.”
SOURCE TEXT MATCHsource supports this sentence
✓
EVIDENCE STATUS · EXAMPLEVerified quote
The wording matches an accessible source passage.
QUOTE ≠ PARAPHRASELINK BACK TO SOURCE ↗
GITHUB UTILITY · TYPESCRIPT
Citations that show their working.
Modular Dev Utils is a portable citation-verification utility I built. It checks source evidence, distinguishes direct wording from paraphrase, and marks claims that still need a human review.
- Design lesson
- A quotation, a paraphrase, and an unverified claim need different evidence states, not the same small, grayed-out disclaimer.
ROLE · AUTHOR / IMPLEMENTATION
STATUS · REUSABLE PACKAGE
05
METHODS / QUESTIONS / CIRCUITS
UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH
Barker Lab research
Undergraduate research through the Aresty Summer Science Program, involving viral tracing and fluorescence microscopy in work related to neural circuitry and pain processing.
- My role
- Learning and applying research methods under lab mentorship.
- What I learned
- How a question becomes an investigation—and why the method and its limits belong alongside the result.
02 / TRAJECTORY2025 — NOW
From a pitch
to a learner’s notebook.
These projects are connected by a change in perspective: from pitching a solution to examining how people learn, investigate, and form better questions.
Cognitive science and neurobiology now inform how I approach software: design around attention, learning, and memory, while leaving room for the person’s own effort and judgment.
Attention is a limited resource. Good tools should spend it carefully.
03 / RESEARCH LENSORIENTATION
Research shapes
what I want to build.
Three perspectives on the same design questions: what a learner can attend to, remember, and check.
SELECT A TERRITORY
Neuroscience
The biological mechanisms underlying perception, action, learning, and behavior.
RELATED THREAD
Neural implementation ↔ computational explanation
03.1 / NEURAL MECHANISMSBIOLOGY AT WORK
From biological signals
to better questions.
Biology grounds the design questions. This model follows a signal from dendritic input to synaptic release.
01 / A SIGNAL THROUGH A NEURONStructure → function
Cell body / The soma maintains the cell and integrates incoming activity. Its nucleus contains genetic material.
At rest
A simplified, slowed-down illustration of a myelinated neuron
03.2 / CIRCUIT QUESTIONSFROM CELLS TO CIRCUITS
Following a question
through the brain.
Tracing and imaging make connections inspectable. That attention to method carries into how I think about evidence in software.
- 01
Viral tracing
Engineered viruses carry fluorescent labels along neural connections, so we can see which regions talk to which.
- 02
Fluorescence microscopy
Imaging the labeled tissue turns those connections into a map you can actually look at, and count.
- 03
Why it matters
Cognition doesn't just arise from one signal in one place. Mapping circuits is a way of asking how network-level behavior gives rise to complex faculties.
03.3 / FROM RESEARCH TO DESIGNMODELS / LIMITS / OBJECTIVES
What are we trying
to explain—and build?
From cells to experience, each explanatory level reveals something different about the person using an interface.
01 / A SIGNAL THROUGH A NEURONStructure → function
Cell body / The soma maintains the cell and integrates incoming activity. Its nucleus contains genetic material.
At rest
FIG. 03—01 / A NETWORK OF CELLS
Methods and evidence
Lab work makes me attentive to method: what was measured, how it was measured, and what remains uncertain. I want research tools to preserve that context.
Inspectable models
A model describes what a process does; an implementation shows how it runs. That distinction informs my interest in AI tools whose outputs can be inspected and checked.
The person using it
A biological description and a person’s understanding are not interchangeable. I want to design for the person doing the work: their goals, attention, and judgment.
The experience of the work
A diagram cannot capture what using a tool feels like. My aspiration is to connect rigorous models with thoughtful design, and test whether a tool genuinely helps people understand.
“Understanding a system at one level doesn’t always tell us everything we want to know about it.”
A research question evolves as I move between a cell, a circuit, a model, and an experience.
03.4 / EVIDENCE & PERCEPTIONEVIDENCE / PRESENTATION
Evidence matters.
So does how we see it.
Knowing something and perceiving it are not always the same. The Müller–Lyer illusion is a small example: the lines are equal, but may not look equal.
That tension interests me as a builder. Clear evidence matters, but so does how information is presented. I want to explore interfaces that make verification easier and keep human judgment in the loop.
It’s a question to investigate, not a claim that one illusion tells us how every mind works.
MÜLLER–LYER · SAME SHAFT LENGTHFIG. 04—01
Knowledge updates; appearance may persist.
Measurement settles the geometry, not the experience of seeing it.
QUIP
"Both lines are the same length. Your brain has simply developed strong opinions about arrowheads."
04 / FIELD NOTESTHINGS I’M THINKING ABOUT
Notes from the margins.
01What does it mean to understand a mind?Neural, computational, experiential＋
A short reflection in progress: different explanatory levels can illuminate the same mind, while leaving different questions open.
02Can software help us think better?Research tools and intellectual context＋
Research tools could do more than store papers. I’m interested in ways to preserve context, connect ideas, and support understanding without optimizing for distraction.
03Human flourishing in an age of AIAgency, understanding, useful tools＋
A question I’m still working through: how can technology extend human capability while leaving room for effort, judgment, and agency?
Currently reading.
COGNITIVE SCIENCE / NEUROSCIENCE / MIND- 01
Philosophy × neuroscienceThe Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Neuroscience
Edited by John Bickle
Paperback · 2013
ISBN-13: 9780199965502 - 02
Consciousness × explanation - 03
Biology × human behavior - 04
Behavior × free will
05 / ABOUTABOUT JONATHAN
Why I keep
following the
question.
I’m an undergraduate at Rutgers University–New Brunswick studying Cell Biology & Neuroscience. Lab research, cognitive science, and product experiments shape what I choose to build.
- Undergraduate research · Barker Lab
- Memory Mission · research & public engagement
- Software and product experimentation
I keep returning to the learner’s desk: what helps someone follow a question, inspect evidence, and keep a record of changing thought?