Colin McNamara graduated from the University of Limerick in 2006 with a BEng (Hons) in Computer Engineering. After graduation he worked as a hardware and software development engineer for the high performance signal processing integrated circuit company Analog Devices. In 2011 he completed an MSc in Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. This included two research projects. The first project investigated dendritic spine morphology in organotypic slice cultures of rat hippocampi (Dr Nigel Emptage's group, Department of Pharmacology). The second investigated the neuronal underpinning of pitch perception using multi-electrode extra cellular recordings from ferret auditory cortex (Prof Andy King's lab, Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics).Colin joined the unit as a member of Dr David Dupret's group in October 2011. For his DPhil he is studying hippocampal network activity associated with learning processes by means of large-scale extracellular recording techniques.