Denise Croote, PhD

Dr. Croote joined Mount Sinai in 2016 as a graduate student in the Neuroscience PhD program and as a Faculty member in the Department of Neuroscience in 2022. As a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow in the Schiller Laboratory of Affective Neuroscience, she explored the neural basis of time representation using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Her doctoral research revealed that our internal sense of time influences decision-making and that the hippocampus plays a crucial role in tracking temporal distances.

Dr. Croote is passionate about science education, outreach, and communication. She is currently the Instructor for the Center for Excellence in Youth Education's Lloyd Sherman Biomedical Science Enrichment Program, a two-year program that aims to foster the development of a scientist identity and skillset among a cohort of high school students attending the Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics.

Dr. Croote also directs the Friedman Brain Institute's outreach organization Mentoring in Neuroscience Discovery at Sinai (MiNDS), which seeks to bring engaging neuroscience education to NYC K-12 students through classroom courses, science fairs, and online educational content (https://www.mindatsinai.com/). She co-directs Mount Sinai's Summer Research Program for Science Teachers, a program designed to provide NYC science teachers with hands-on research experience in Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai laboratories (https://friedmanbrain.icahn.mssm.edu/summer-research-program-science-teachers). Lastly, she serves on the organizing committee of the Friedman Brain Institute’s Stories of Brain and Beyond, a storytelling workshop run in collaboration with The Story Collider.