Watercolor of a marmoset reaching toward a butterfly
Yale Wu Tsai Institute
Center for Neurocomputation & Machine Intelligence

How brains control bodies.

I study the neural computations that turn intention into coordinated movement, bridging systems neuroscience, biomechanics and deep reinforcement learning to understand embodied control.

About

I'm an Associate Research Scientist in the Saxena Lab, in Yale's Department of Biomedical Engineering. I'm based at the Wu Tsai Institute's Center for Neurocomputation and Machine Intelligence, where my research asks how nervous systems generate flexible feedback driven behavior, and how we can model that control computationally.

I earned my PhD in Computational Neuroscience at the University of Chicago with Nicholas Hatsopoulos, where I built methods to study the neural control of natural behavior in freely moving marmosets. As a postdoc with Hatsopoulos and Jason MacLean, I recorded sensorimotor cortical population dynamics across the animals' full behavioral repertoire, from prey capture to sleep.

Jeffrey D. Walker
Jeffrey D. Walker
New Haven, CT
Research
i.
Embodied sensorimotor control

Whole-body biomechanical models driven by deep reinforcement learning and constrained by data, used to ask how neural control and body mechanics jointly produce natural behavior.

ii.
Population dynamics of natural behavior

Large-scale recordings from sensorimotor cortex of freely moving marmosets, characterizing how population activity encodes movement across the full ethological repertoire.

iii.
Tools for naturalistic neuroscience

Chronic wireless neural recording, markerless 3D pose estimation, and voluntary behavioral-training platforms that make rigorous study of unconstrained behavior possible.

Publications
* co-first author
† co-senior author
2026
bioRxiv · preprint
Natural prey capture reveals flexible reconfiguration of canonical motor-cortical dynamics for online control
Walker JD, Aparicio P, Saxena S, Hatsopoulos NG, MacLean JN. bioRxiv. doi.org/10.64898/2026.09.01.748436
2026
Embodied sensorimotor control: computational modeling of the neural control of movement
Almani MN*, Lazzari J*, Walker JD*, Saxena S. Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering. doi.org/10.1146/annurev-bioeng-102723-020454
2025
Spatially extensive LFP correlations identify slow-wave sleep in marmoset sensorimotor cortex
Aparicio P*, Walker JD*, MacLean JN, Hatsopoulos NG. eNeuro. doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0139-25.2025
2024
A dynamic subset of network interactions underlies tuning to natural movements in marmoset sensorimotor cortex
Moore DD, MacLean JN, Walker JD†, Hatsopoulos NG†. Nature Communications. doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-54343-6
2022
Validating markerless pose estimation with 3D X-ray radiography
Moore DD, Walker JD, MacLean JN, Hatsopoulos NG. Journal of Experimental Biology. doi.org/10.1242/jeb.243998
2021
Chronic wireless neural population recordings with common marmosets
Walker JD, Pirschel F, Sundiang M, Niekrasz M, MacLean JN, Hatsopoulos NG. Cell Reports. doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109379
2020
A platform for semi-automated voluntary training of common marmosets for behavioral neuroscience
Walker JD, Pirschel F, Gidmark N, MacLean JN, Hatsopoulos NG. Journal of Neurophysiology. doi.org/10.1152/jn.00300.2019
2017
The marmoset as a model system for studying voluntary motor control
Walker JD, MacLean JN, Hatsopoulos NG. Developmental Neurobiology. doi.org/10.1002/dneu.22461
2012
Propagation of epileptiform events across the corpus callosum in a cortical slice preparation
Walker JD, Storch G, Quach-Wong B, Sonnenfeld J, Aaron G. PLOS ONE. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0031415
2011
STEP regulation of seizure thresholds in the hippocampus
Aaron G, Briggs S, Walker JD, Asik K, Lombroso P, Naegele J. Epilepsia. doi.org/10.1111/j.1528-1167.2010.02912.x
Curriculum Vitae
Full CV including conference presentations, invited talks, teaching, mentoring, and awards.
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Contact

Let's talk about
movement and the brain.

Email
email me
Office
100 College St., Rm 1121A
New Haven, CT 06510
Elsewhere
0000-0001-7192-9800