Principal Investigator

Pouya Bashivan

Assistant Professor
Department of Physiology
McGill University

CV

Graduate Students

Xiaoxuan Lei

Ph.D. student

I am a Ph.D. student in Pouya’s group. I am intrigued by how intelligent behavior emerges from neuron interactions, either biological or artificial. I build computational models of primates brain with a focus on artificial neural networks. Five facts about me: have lived in 3 different continents and North America will be the 4th one; whovian (non-certified); attempted to master Dutch, failed, same with C; 2021 (the year of ox) is my year; play the violin and good at math ;)

Maxime Daigle

Ph.D. student

I’m interested in episodic memory and memory augmented neural networks. I work on building computational models of the hippocampus. Before joining the lab, I completed my Master’s degree in Machine Learning in 2021 and received my Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Science in 2019. In my free time, I like to read fiction and play tabletop games.

Motahareh Pourrahimi

Ph.D. student

I am a Masters student in IPN. I received my B.S. degree in electrical engineering at University of Tehran. I am interested in understanding the brain through computational modelling and electrophysiology, working in the intersection of neuroscience and artificial intelligence. I enjoy watching movies, reading, and drawing in my free time.

Lucas Gomez

M.Sc. student

I am a Masters student in IPN. I have a background in computer science and neural network modeling. I am interested in exploring the relationship between AI and the brain, and what that relationship has to offer the field of neuroscience. In my free time I like to play soccer and ski.

Amirozhan Dehghani

M.Sc. student

I’m an undergraduate student majoring in Neuroscience and Computer science. I’m interested in developing hierarchical artificial neural network model of the visual cortex. I enjoy playing piano and chess in my spare time.

Agnessa Karapetian

Visiting Ph.D. student

I am a visiting PhD student based at Freie Universitaet Berlin supervised by Dr. Radoslaw Cichy. I have a background in cognitive computational neuroscience and I am interested in scene perception in humans and deep neural networks. In particular, I am currently interested in how neuroscience can inspire progress in deep learning. During my lab visit, I will investigate whether training deep neural networks simultaneously on neural representations and object recognition can improve the adversarial robustness and the object recognition performance of these networks. In my free time, I like to paint, sew and play the drums.

Ali Saheb Pasand

Ph.D. student

I am a PhD student at Mila/McGill, fortunate to study and conduct research under the supervision of Prof. Bashivan and Prof. Richards. I got my Master of Mathematics in Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. Before delving into computer science, I earned a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Electrical Engineering (Control and Wireless Communication Systems) from Amirkabir University of Technology and a Master of Applied Science degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering (Information theory) from the University of Waterloo. Currently, my research interests revolve around three areas that I find exciting: reducing the spurious correlation in self-supervised learning methods, improving the generalization of deep neural networks, and developing efficient episodic memory modules. The thread connecting these three areas which I am going to focus on is the need for localizing the place of memorization and affecting that area. In my free time, I enjoy reading books, visiting art galleries, and watching movies.

Undergraduate Researchers

Herbie He

B.Sc. student

I am a computer science undergraduate at the faculty of science. I am interested in investigating cross-species variations in hippocampus representations using deep learning. In my free time, I like to travel and buy cheap stuff from thrift stores.

Aziz Ktari

B.Sc. student

I am an undergraduate student studying Psychology in the Faculty of Science. My research interests focus on the application of AI to enhance psychological treatments and improve research methodologies. I am also currently working on improving multiple sequence alignment through neural networks. During my free time, I enjoy playing basketball and watching movies.

Kunjia Zhang

B.Sc. student

I’m an undergraduate student majoring in Cognitive Science. I’m fascinated by how artificial neural networks can be used to simulate brain function and open up new possibilities in neuroscience and understanding the mind. My current project focuses on building neural network models of the hippocampus. Outside of academics, I enjoy playing ultimate frisbee, basketball and volleyball, and making music with my band, I’m the guitarist ;).

Alumni

Vivian Li (2024)

B.SC. STUDENT (Computer Science)

Last known location (2024): Continued studies at McGill University

Anthony Wilkinson (2023–2024)

B.SC. STUDENT (Cognitive Science)

Last known location (2024): Master’s student in Artificial Intelligence at Northeastern University

Hao (Mark) Bai (2021–2022)

B.SC. STUDENT (COMP 402, Computer Science)

Last known location (2022): Master’s student in Computer Science at McGill University

Reza Bayat (2021-2023)

M.Sc. student

Last known location (2024): Mila, QC, Canada

Jadyn Normore (2020–2021)

B.SC. STUDENT (PHGY 359, Physiology)

Last known location (2021): Master’s student at McGill University

Amirozhan Dehghani (2020–2022)

B.SC. STUDENT (Honours Neuroscience)

Last known location (2025): Master’s student in my lab at McGill University

Yifei (Helen) Ren (2021–2022)

B.SC. STUDENT (COMP 396, Computer Science)

Last known location (2022): Software engineer, Waterloo, ON, Canada

Huidi Li (2021–2022)

B.SC. STUDENT (COGS 444, Cognitive Science)

Last known location (2022): PhD student, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT

Takuya Ishii (Summer 2021)

B.SC. STUDENT (Honours Cognitive Science)

Last known location (2021): Continued studies at McGill University

Justin Galouzi (Summer 2021)

B.SC. STUDENT (Neuroscience)

Last known location (2021): Medical student at University of Sherbrooke

Yuhe Fan (Summer 2022)

B.SC. STUDENT (Honours Computer Science)

Last known location (2022): Continued studies at McGill University

Andrew Zeng (2022–2023)

B.SC. STUDENT (Mathematics)

Last known location (2023): Continued studies at McGill University

Elena Bai (Summer 2023)

B.SC. STUDENT (Honours Cognitive Science)

Last known location (2023): Lab Assistant at University of Missouri

Kaicheng Yan (2022)

B.SC. STUDENT (Cognitive Science)

Last known location (2022): Continued studies at McGill University

Xinyu Qian (2023–2025)

B.SC. STUDENT (Computer Science)

Last known location (2025): Master’s student in Mathematics at New York University

Brune Bettler (2024)

B.SC. STUDENT (Computer Science)

Last known location (2024): Continued studies at McGill University

Zizhan (Herbie) He (2024–2025)

B.SC. STUDENT (Computer Science, Volunteer)

Last known location (2025): Incoming Master’s student in my lab (starting September 2025)

Sara Karimi (2024)

B.SC. STUDENT (Computer Science, Internship)

Last known location (2024): Continued studies at Alzahra University

Huayi Yang (2022-2024)

M.SC. STUDENT (IPN)

Last known location (2024): working at a biotech company in China

Zihan Weng (2023-2025)

M.SC. STUDENT (IPN)

Last known location (2024): Incoming PhD student in my lab in Fall 2025