Headshot of Ashley Juavinett.

Ashley Juavinett

Associate teaching professor of neurobiology
University of California, San Diego

Ashley Juavinett is associate teaching professor of neurobiology at the University of California, San Diego, where she also co-directs STARTneuro, a program funded by the National Institutes of Health’s Blueprint Enhancing Neuroscience Diversity through Undergraduate Research Education Experiences. Through her work and writing, she seeks to understand the best ways to train the next generation of neuroscientists. A significant part of this effort is building resources to make such training accessible and more effective.

Juavinett completed her Ph.D. with Edward Callaway at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California, investigating the cell types and circuits underlying visual perception in mice. She then conducted postdoctoral research with Anne Churchland at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, advancing ethological approaches to understanding behavior as well as cutting-edge ways of recording from freely moving animals.

Juavinett is the author of “So You Want to Be a Neuroscientist?” an accessible guide to the field for aspiring researchers, and she has previously written for the Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain.

Explore more from The Transmitter

Speech bubbles progress from light- to dark- colored.

Amid funding uncertainty, neuroscientists report a mix of cynicism, persistence

Two years into one of the most tumultuous tenures in U.S. federal funding, researchers outline how they are coping with ongoing changes and reflect on the impact these changes are having on the system more broadly.

By Emily Singer
28 August 2026 | 5 min read
Stages of neurodegeneration: Neurofibrillary tangles at different stages of neurodegeneration are labeled with phosphorylated tau antibodies (green and blue).

Reimagining Mexico’s brain bank

Since Alzheimer’s disease researcher José Luna-Muñoz assumed leadership of the facility—Latin America’s oldest—in 2011, he has been acquiring additional tissue types and is working to expand donor recruitment to rural areas.

By Alejandra Manjarrez
28 August 2026 | 7 min read

Revealing how crabs make their escape

Houdini-like Neohelice granulata offers a rare opportunity to record intracellularly from awake, behaving animals.

By Natalia Mesa
28 August 2026 | 0 min watch