Cybelle Smith
PhD Application and Program Success Coach, Neuroscience-Focus
Studied at University of Pennsylvania
Works at University of Pennsylvania
Successful clients at
Questions? Start chatting with this coach before you get started.
Cybelle's Offerings
Custom hourly · $100/hr
Get help with Application Strategy, Data Analysis, and .
Cybelle also coaches for Science & Research, Biotech & Medical Device, Business Analytics & Intelligence, Data Science, and Fellowship & Postdocs Programs. View all.
Cybelle’s PhD Programs Qualifications
Cybelle has helped clients get into these schools:
I have mentored multiple students, helping them refine their applications for PhD programs in Psychology (specializing in Cognitive Neuroscience). I have also mentored students in my new field, neural tissue engineering. My mentoring has spanned advice not only on getting into programs, but being successful in them -- handling mentoring teams, achieving milestones and getting what you want from the degree program.
Cybelle can help with:
Application Strategy
Data Analysis
Data Collection
Defense Preparation
Dissertation Proposal
Editing
Essays
Financial Aid & Scholarships
Interviews
Letters of Recommendation
Research
Resume
School Selection
Secondary Review
Cybelle also coaches for Science & Research, Biotech & Medical Device, Business Analytics & Intelligence, Data Science, and Fellowship & Postdocs Programs. View all.
About Cybelle
I am a career scientist with a PhD in Psychology specializing in Cognitive Neuroscience and an MS in Applied Statistics. I am seeking more independence following my postdoctoral training and am moving to part-time freelance consulting and coaching while I apply to grants and found my own start-up company. I am truly excited to share my expertise and dedicated mentoring style with a broader group of people! In addition to 10+ years' experience in the field of cognitive neuroscience and psycholinguistics, I recently switched fields into neural tissue engineering to help the field move towards building artificial living neural networks with realistic functional dynamics. I got accepted into every PhD program I applied for (including prestigious institutions like Penn, UCSD, etc.), and have applied for and received multiple prestigious fellowships, most notably, the NSF-GRFP and the NRSA F32. I take pride in giving people solid professional advice and guiding them along their desired career paths.
Why do I coach?
I love mentoring -- I have always "over-mentored" my undergraduate underlings at the lab and more recently my graduate student and PhD-wielding colleagues. I take a down-to-earth and open-minded approach to guiding individuals along their desired career trajectory. I also have followed a somewhat unusual career path myself, changing fields after my first postdoc and now freelancing and founding a company. So I genuinely enjoy sharing insights that you may not be able to get from other people. I also am very open to opportunities to apply my expertise as a data analyst or scientific consultant, if that sounds like a better fit to your needs. I will not perform work towards a degree program that must come from the student, so please don't ask.
Work Experience
Data Analyst
University of Pennsylvania
December 2025 - Present
Data analyst and researcher at the Cullen Lab. (Position title changed but responsibilities remained similar to my postdoctoral work). Postdoctoral Fellow & Data Analyst, Neural Tissue Engineering Department of Neurosurgery, University of Pennsylvania / VA Medical Center | 2023–Present • Serve as in-house statistical and scientific consultant and data analysis expert. • Contribute across project stages: conceptualization, experimental design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, and publication. • Develop quantitative analysis pipelines for electrophysiological, calcium imaging data. • Translate complex data patterns into structured, interpretable research products. • Mentor undergraduate and graduate trainees.
Postdoctoral Researcher
University of Pennsylvania
November 2023 - November 2025
Postdoctoral researcher in neural tissue engineering at the Cullen Lab. Postdoctoral Fellow & Data Analyst, Neural Tissue Engineering Department of Neurosurgery, University of Pennsylvania / VA Medical Center | 2023–Present • Serve as in-house statistical and scientific consultant and data analysis expert. • Contribute across project stages: conceptualization, experimental design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, and publication. • Develop quantitative analysis pipelines for electrophysiological, calcium imaging data. • Translate complex data patterns into structured, interpretable research products. • Mentor undergraduate and graduate trainees.
Postdoctoral Researcher
University of Pennsylvania
January 2019 - November 2023
Postdoctoral researcher in Psychology at the Thompson-Schill Lab. Close collaborator with the Penn Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab under Anna Schapiro. Postdoctoral Fellow, Psychology (Human Cognitive Neuroscience) Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania | 2019–2023 • Conducted research on learning, memory, and predictive processing using behavioral methods and computational modeling in the field of human cognitive neuroscience. • Published peer-reviewed publications, gave scientific presentations, mentored undergraduate and post-baccalaureate trainees, and provided expert feedback to peers.
PhD student
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
August 2013 - December 2018
Full-Time
Nongovernmental Organization
August 2012 - June 2013
Full-time volunteer at Chinese NGO Prop Roots. Compose and edit English language documents including grant proposals; prepare and teach first ever English classes held at the local elementary school; keep program operations going including after-school art classes.
Research Assistant
University of Maryland
August 2011 - August 2012
Full time research assistant and lab manager at UMCP Linguistics Department under Dr. Colin Phillips. Designed and ran psycholinguistic experiments, managed the subject pool and communication with the IRB.
Research Intern
Stanford University
June 2011 - August 2012
Study first language acquisition under Professor Mike Frank. Conduct eye tracking studies on children ages 0-3, manage video corpus of Japanese mother-child interactions, develop mechanical turk site for database annotation.
Research Assistant
Stanford University
September 2008 - June 2011
Assisted Professor John Rickford in analyzing transcripts, audiotapes for grammatical and phonological features. Revised the American Heritage Dictionary. Contributed to papers published in sociolinguistics.
Education
University of Pennsylvania
Certificate, Entrepreneurial Science
2024 - 2025
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Doctor of Philosophy, Psychology (Cognitive Neuroscience)
2013 - 2018
Stanford University
BA, Linguistics
2007 - 2011
HONORS THESIS: The Sociolinguistics of Yes-No Question Intonation in African American Vernacular English
8 Reviews
Overall Rating
5.0
Cybelle has helped clients get into these schools: