Paheli DC Lab
Our Members
A list of past and present members of our group, including each member's biographical and contact information
The Team
Masai Oakes
Mathematics Undergraduate Researcher
Masai joined the lab as a junior undergraduate student at Trinity Washington University. She is majoring in Mathematics and minoring in Visual Arts and Data Analytics. Masai aims to incorporate both art and coding into her studies. In the lab, she is working on analyzing data from mouse models of anxiety disorder and using machine learning methods to compare neurons from these mice to control groups, using our mathematical model to understand the functional basis underlying observed morphological differences to better understand the pathology of these behavioral disorders. She is also applying her skills in art and programming to develop a mathematically-informed encyclopedia and coloring book of different neuron cell types observed in humans, focusing on the fractal properties of neuronal branching and average scaling ratios and leaf numbers for each cell-type. Masai's favorite mathematics courses at Trinity have been differential equations and multivariable calculus, as she loves derivatives and integrals and learning about their various applications. After graduating from Trinity, Masai intends to pursue graduate school in applied mathematics and data analysis.
Paheli Desai-Chowdhry, PhD
Principal Investigator
Before starting her research group at Trinity Washington University, Paheli earned her B.S. in Mathematics/Applied Science at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She describes Chemistry as her first love; she entered college as a Chemistry major, but several broken test tubes later, soon found that she was not made for the laboratory setting. However, she deeply enjoyed the theoretical aspects of chemistry such as physical chemistry, quantum mechanics and thermodynamics, finding a particular liking to the mathematical and logical components of these courses. This led her to try to squeeze in more advanced courses in mathematics such as logic, complex analysis, and partial differential equations, rather than the lab courses required for the Chemistry major. Ultimately, she found a home in the math department at UCSD, graduating as a Math/Applied Science major with a concentration in Chemistry. She also explored research opportunities in theoretical biophysics and neuron modeling, as she wanted to apply her mathematics knowledge to solve real problems in society, particularly mental health. After UCSD, she went on to pursue her doctoral degree in Biomathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she worked under Dr. Van Savage and extended the Savage Lab's existing mathematical framework for cardiovascular and plant network models to study neurons and neuronal networks, building a functionally-informed structural model of neuron morphology across cell types and brain regions. After graduating from UCLA, she moved across the country to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, using biophysical principles to model jellyfish vascular networks, where she further developed skills in network modeling and computational simulations. During an advocacy day trip to Washington D.C. with the Association for Women in Mathematics with a fellow UCLA graduate and postdoc at Penn, she connected with Dr. Kerry Luse, the chair of mathematics department at Trinity, where she was invited to apply as a tenure-track professor. Trinity was the dream academic home she never knew existed, as she deeply resonates with its mission to make higher education more accessible for traditionally underrepresented communities. In 2025, she established her research group extending her neuron morphology model to study behavioral disorders. She is very committed to teaching and mentorship as a means to promote inclusivity in STEM fields, and aims to develop pedagogical practices that reduce the barriers that underrepresented groups face in mathematics. Her teaching practice incorporates computational tools and project-based learning in the mathematics classroom so that even students who are not pursuing mathematics as a major can understand the relevance of abstract mathematical concepts in their individual topics of interest, just as her past experiences exploring other interests have ultimately led her to mathematics. When she is not doing math, she loves painting, artistic (synchronized) swimming, playing with her dog, reading, listening to music, and sleeping.