#SoCaltech: Mahider Gessesse

“Psychiatric conditions are a problem that I am invested in addressing. We don't know enough about the science of how those disorders come about [to fix them]. If you have a heart issue, doctors will know what's wrong with your heart and give you medicine to fix it. But if you have an issue with your brain, that's not the case. We don't know enough about the brain to know what's wrong. So I wanted to bring a hard science approach to treating problems that up until recently have just been left to psychiatry and psychology. That's the main reason I picked computation and neural systems.”

Mahider Gessesse, a junior studying computation and neural systems, discussing her research interests in “Break Through: Together We Change the World.” Gessesse has worked in the lab of Sarah Reisman, Bren Professor of Chemistry; and the lab of Ueli Rutishauser (PhD ’08), a visiting associate in biology and bioengineering who is based at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

#SoCaltech is an occasional series celebrating the diverse individuals who give Caltech its spirit of excellence, ambition, and ingenuity. Know someone we should profile? Send nominations to magazine@caltech.edu.