I am an incoming Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at Medicine Institute for Neuroscience Discovery at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. My lab will dissect how the hippocampal circuit can flexibly perform distinct computations to support spatial memory and how these computations degrade in aging and Alzheimer’s disease. The Aery Jones lab will launch in January 2026. I’m recruiting rotation students for spring semester and a lab manager or research technician. If you’re interested in joining, please email me at emijones@stanford.edu.
I’m currently a postdoc in Dr. Lisa Giocomo’s lab at Stanford University. I designed an electrode implantation technique that allows recording of hundreds of neurons simultaneously from multiple brain regions in freely moving mice. With this technique, I observed that neurons in the medial entorhinal cortex frequently represent remote sensory experiences during immobility. These representations are independent of both SWRs and other CA1 activity and reflect task-relevant associations between locations at pertinent times. This work, which was recently released as a preprint, suggests a novel role for MEC in encoding task-relevant spatial associations beyond the context of movement and SWRs.
Previously, I completed my PhD at UCSF in the lab of Dr. Yadong Huang and co-mentored by Dr. Loren Frank. My thesis work measured hippocampal sharp-wave ripples as a biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease and as a readout for input drive as modulated by different interneuron subclasses.
As part of my research, I enjoy teaching and mentoring. I specifically direct my time towards mentoring and creating resources and opportunities for marginalized scientists. I previously co-chaired the 2023 Inhibition in the CNS GRS.
Recent Updates
May 2025: I’ve accepted a faculty position at the University of Maryland, Baltimore!
January 2025: I will be giving a talk at Winter Brain in Lake Tahoe, CA in late January.
October 2024: John Wen and Ben Sorscher’s thesis work, One-shot entorhinal maps enable flexible navigation in novel environments, on which I am second author, is published in Nature.
July 2024: My main postdoc work, Entorhinal cortex represents task-relevant remote locations independent of CA1, is released as a preprint.
Contact: Email | ResearchGate | BlueSky | Github