Kari Hoffman.

Kari Hoffman

Associate professor of psychology
Vanderbilt University

Kari Hoffman is associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, specializing in computational primate neuroethology within the Vanderbilt Brain institute, the Data Science Institute, the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Psychology. Her research investigates how neural circuits organize and adapt to allow an organism to build and apply knowledge effectively.

Hoffman’s lab uses naturalistic, contingent tasks with primate models to understand brain function in real-world contexts, focusing on how memories are structured over time. To understand neural population organization during and after learning, her team uses high-density, wireless multisite ensemble recordings. These neural and behavioral measures are then compared with computational models of learning and generalization.

Hoffman earned her Ph.D. in systems and computational neuroscience from the University of Arizona and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Nikos Logothetis at the Max Planck Institute in Tübingen, Germany. Her contributions to neuroscience have been recognized with Sloan and Whitehall fellowships, an Ontario Early Researcher Award, and designation as a Kavli fellow.

Explore more from The Transmitter

Research image containing repeated structures, suggesting potential image manipulation.

More than two dozen papers by neural tube researcher come under scrutiny

One of the studies, published in 2021 in Science Advances, received an editorial expression of concern on 21 May, after the journal learned that an institutional review of alleged image problems is underway.

By Claudia López Lloreda
9 June 2025 | 6 min read

On the importance of reading (just not too much)

The real fun of being a neuroscientist, and maybe the key to asking and answering new questions, is to think big and take intellectual risks.

By Sheena Josselyn
9 June 2025 | 8 min read
Research image of developing axons in the fly brain.

How developing neurons simplify their search for a synaptic mate

Streamlining the problem from 3D to 1D eases the expedition—a strategy the study investigators deployed to rewire an olfactory circuit in flies.

By Calli McMurray
6 June 2025 | 6 min read