Isabel Gerrard is a Scientific Software Developer with the SETI Institute and research assistant to Dr. Sofia Sheikh, working to streamline the analysis pipeline for the Anti-Solar Point Survey with the Allen Telescope Array. Isabel was first introduced to SETI science during their undergraduate internship with Breakthrough Listen through the Berkeley SETI Research Center. They earned a bachelor’s degree in Cognitive Science with minors in Computer Science and Japanese from the University of California, Berkeley in 2022. To Isabel, SETI and computational neuroscience offer complementary ways to explore existential questions about consciousness and the universe through the brain and space-- an intersection that resonates with their background in scientific computing, cognitive science, and language.

The beginning of their career focused on software engineering, from building tools to support access to community resources, to Unity and DevOps work for an augmented reality startup. A growing passion for scientific research led Isabel to pivot toward neuroscience and join the Teledyne Intelligent Systems Laboratory in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. There, Isabel worked on DARPA-funded closed-loop brain-computer interface projects including vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) for accelerated learning and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) for treating insomnia.

This work led to their current role at Sonera, a Bay Area startup developing a new class of magnetic sensors based on acoustically driven ferromagnetic resonance (ADFMR). At Sonera, Isabel supports both the neuroscience and software teams—designing multimodal experiments, building data acquisition pipelines, analyzing physiological electromagnetic signals, and developing software tools for sensor characterization using a custom electromagnet.

For more information about Isabel’s career and interests, visit (isabelgerrard.com)

Alternate Contact: isabel@gerarrds.org

Publications: Google Scholar