Liftoff: New lab alerts

Learn about early-career scientists starting their own labs.

Are you a new principal investigator? Email Francisco J. Rivera Rosario at [email protected]. Selected new labs may be featured in our Launch monthly newsletter.

Interviews have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

March 2025

Jocelyn Breton, incoming assistant professor of neuroscience, Smith College
Lab start date: July 2025

What do you study? What part of your research are you most excited about?

The goal of my lab is to understand how experiencing stress during key developmental periods affects the brain and ultimately alters motivated behaviors. Experiencing early-life stress is unfortunately very common in both the United States and around the world, and we know that such experiences can increase the risk for developing psychiatric disorders later in life. One of the aims of my lab is to explore what’s changing in the brain, especially in reward pathways. Ultimately, I hope my work will inform treatments and interventions for individuals at risk.

What is the best advice you received from a mentor or colleague before opening your lab?

Do not aim for perfection in the first few years. It’s important to remember that you’re setting the foundation for what’s to come, and that will take time. Another bit of advice I’ve gotten is to get to know as many people at your new university as possible, including the administrative staff and faculty from other departments. I’ll try to meet at least one new person each week when I start.

 

Vivian Paulun, incoming assistant professor of psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Lab start date: August 2025

What do you study? What part of your research are you most excited about?

My lab’s research program seeks to explain a fundamental human ability—visual intuitive physics, our ability to understand the physics of a scene at a glance. Whenever we open our eyes, we instantly infer the physical properties of objects, the relationships between them, the forces acting on them and what is likely to happen next. This ability is an essential component of intelligent behavior: We cannot take a single step forward without first determining if the surface will support our weight and whether the road ahead is slippery, and we cannot pick up an object without first determining its approximate mass, rigidity and friction. How the brain infers the physical structure of the outside world from the patterns of light entering our eyes remains a major scientific challenge that I want to tackle in my lab.

Are there any traditions or practices from the labs you trained at that you will bring over and implement in your lab?

I have been fortunate to train in labs with fantastic mentors, and I would not be where I am today without their support. In my own lab, I hope to foster a similarly supportive, uplifting, kind and fun lab culture. When it comes to traditions, I always liked the German custom of having the lab craft a personalized and fun graduation hat—featuring references to the individual’s research, hobbies or personality—for every newly minted Ph.D. I would love to continue this tradition in my lab.

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