Chank (Live) - Rum Ham

Rum Ham is a band that my friends and I created for the inaugural Blueberry Swamp Festival (https://www.instagram.com/blueberryswampfestival/), which we helped put on during the summer of 2025. This camping festival brought together friends and strangers from across the East coast for two straight days of live music and theater--including 13 different NYC-based bands, DJ's, and solo acts. Making music with my friends is one of my main outlets outside of science, serving as a space where I can fully express my creativity and stay connected to the artistic side of my family. For me, playing in this performance was very much an "in between": between composition/structure and improvisation, between familiar relationships and new communities, between the intensity of pursuing a PhD and the freedom of making music in the woods of upstate NY.
Filmed and Produced by Dan J Ray (djray.media@gmail.com). Personnel: piano - Johnny Liesman, guitar - Henry Morjikian, bass - Finn Gardner-Puschak, drums - Emanuel Coleman.

Manny is a second-year Neuroscience PhD student in the Saez Lab, co-mentored by Dr. Helen Mayberg. His research focuses on mood and brain state transitions in the context of epilepsy and psychiatric comorbidities, using naturalistic behavior and intracranial recordings to identify markers of network instability. Before graduate school, he worked in the Maguire Lab at Tufts University and studied neuroscience and education at Bowdoin College. Outside the lab, Manny enjoys playing the drums and ultimate frisbee with his friends.