Bio

Nick Manfred is an NSF Graduate Fellow, SIGF Fellow, and Neurosciences PhD Candidate at Stanford University. He received his A.B. with departmental honors in Neuroscience and Behavior from Columbia University, where he conducted research on valence encoding in mouse models of anxiety disorders. Prior to Stanford, he was a connectome annotator for a collaboration between the Zuckerman Institute and the FlyEM Project of Janelia-HHMI, and a Fulbright Scholar at the Max Planck Institute of Biological Intelligence. He is interested in identifying therapeutic targets to treat aging and neurodegeneration by researching lysosomal function. At Stanford, he has participated in LeadX, the Arete Fellowship, ASES Breakthrough, Ignite, MBCT, GRIP. He also has mentored undergraduates through CCOP Bootcamp and completed a PhD minor in Bioengineering.

Honors & Awards

  • Pfeiffer Research Foundation Fellow, Gustavus and Louise Pfeiffer Research Foundation (2025)
  • Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow, Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University (2025)
  • Germany Research Internship Program, Club of Germany & Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University (2024)
  • Trainee Professional Development Award, Society for Neuroscience (2025)
  • Mind Brain Computation and Technology (MBCT) Training Program, Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University (2023)
  • Arete Fellow, Stanford Effective Altruism, Stanford University (2023)
  • LeadX, Distinguished Careers Institute, Stanford University (2023)
  • National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, National Science Foundation (2022)
  • Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship Honorable Mention, U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (2022)
  • Fulbright Scholar (Germany), Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State (2021)
  • MaxSIP Scholar, Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology (2021)
  • Amgen Scholar, Duke University (2021)
  • Departmental Honors in Neuroscience and Behavior, Columbia University (2021)

Education & Certifications

  • A.B., Columbia University, Neuroscience and Behavior (Departmental Honors) (2021)

Current Research and Scholarly Interests

Investigating Batten disease pathology and treatment via multi-omic approaches