Danilo Bzdok is a medical doctor and computer scientist with a dual background in systems neuroscience and machine learning algorithms. After medical training at RWTH Aachen University (Germany), Université de Lausanne (Switzerland), and Harvard Medical School (USA), he completed one Ph.D. in brain-imaging neuroscience (Research Center Juelich, Germany, 2012) and one Ph.D. in computer science in machine learning statistics at INRIA Saclay and Neurospin (France, 2016). Danilo currently serves as Associate Professor at McGill’s Faculty of Medicine and as Canada CIFAR AI Chair at Mila - Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, Montreal, Canada, including cross-appointments at the McConnell Brain Imaging Center, Ludmer Centre for Neuroinformatics and Mental Health, Montreal Neurological Institute, and the School of Computer Science at McGill University. In his free time, he enjoys French and Italian culture, language and languages, playing chess or Go, and consuming excessive amounts of music.

Jakub Kopal completed his Ph.D. in neuroscience under joint supervision from the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague and Université Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier in 2021. Currently, he is working as a postdoctoral fellow at the intersection of neuroscience and genetics in the group of Danilo Bzdok at McGill University and Sébastien Jacquemont at CHU Saint-Justine. His research focuses on the influence of genetic mutations on brain structure and function. Otherwise, he enjoys data visualization, pickles and random facts.

Andrea obtained undergraduate and master’s degrees in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience at Oxford before completing his PhD in neuroscience at Cambridge and the Alan Turing Institute (UK). His doctoral work combined multimodal, multi-species neuroimaging to investigate the neuroscience of altered states of consciousness (coma, anaesthesia, psychedelics) through the lens of complex systems and information dynamics. He is now conducting postdoctoral work with Dr. Bratislav Misic (MNI) and Dr. Danilo Bzdok (MILA), at the interface of AI and neuroscience. Combining whole-brain computational modelling and neuromorphic computing, he investigates how the network architecture and neuromodulatory landscape of the brain jointly shape information processing and cognition. A native of Italy, Andrea enjoys hiking in the mountains, cooking, indoor skydiving, and reading and writing fiction.

Karin Saltoun is a PhD student in Neuroscience at McGill University. She studied biophysics at York University (Toronto) where she developed a love for using math and physics to understand biological problems on a more fundamental level. During her undergraduate career, first through work in an experimental lab focusing on precision measurements in atomic physics, before moving to a computational neuroscience lab developing algorithms for distinguishing sleep states from brain behaviour. She is currently working in Dr. Bzdok’s lab to understand brain asymmetry at a population level using a variety of machine learning techniques. When she’s not glued to her computer, she enjoys baking desserts or reading fiction.

Prior to joining the Bzdok Lab at McGill, Liam completed his bachelor’s degree in Engineering Physics at UBC and subsequently worked on the R&D team at an additive manufacturing startup. As a doctoral student in the Computer Science department, he is investigating the function and disfunction of the human brain through the lens of single-cell omics, as well as developing computational methods to better analyze and interpret this high-dimensional biological data.

Jack is a PhD student in the Quantitative Life Sciences program at McGill. Prior to joining the lab, Jack completed an Honours BSc in Statistics and Biochemistry at the University of Toronto, where he was a Schulich Leader and National Scholar. His current research is focused on untangling the complexity of human disease and biology using increasingly powerful deep learning approaches. An avid distance runner, Jack is also captain of McGill’s varsity cross country team, and a member of the varsity track team.

Anwesha is starting her PhD in the Biological and Biomedical Engineering department at McGill university. After completing her Masters in Aersopace Engineering, she went on to apply her engineering skills as a Quantitative Researcher at JP Morgan Chase, Mumbai. She developed her interest in machine learning techniques while working on her Masters thesis for object detection and 6D pose estimation. She also did a summer internship at CERN where she worked on High Granularity Calorimeter data and applied machine learning techniques to classify fundamental particles. She now hopes to use ML techniques to further the domain of neuroscience and better understand the brain. In her leisure time, Anwesha loves reading fantasy, hiking, and yoga. She also enjoys dancing and is trained in Bharatnatyam.

Le is pursuing his PhD in the Integrated Program of Neuroscience at McGill University. He finished his bachelor’s degree in computer science and master’s degree in psychology at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. He is interested in the relationship between human behavior and the brain and is currently studying the effect of chronotype (circadian rhythms) on the brain pattern by applying machine learning methods on population datasets. In his free time, Zhou reads fiction, watches movies, and plays games.

Louis is a PhD student in the Integrated Program in Neuroscience at McGill University. He completed his bachelor in computer sciences (focused in applied mathematics) at the College Militaire Royal de St-Jean and his masters in computer sciences (focused in operational research) at the University of Montreal. Prior to joining the Bzdok Lab, he served for an extended period of time with the Department of National Defense, primarily leading logistics operations in various missions overseas as a peacekeeping officer. He then founded Sologlobe, a Montreal based Supply Chain software company, where he played an active role as CEO for 20 years. Louis’ current research interests are in the area of neuroscience and altered states of consciousness induced by psychedelics and meditation. This work is conducted primarily through the lense of machine learning algorithms and data analysis. He enjoys multiple outdoor activities and sports, music, woodworking and off grid living.

Chloé Savignac is an MSc student in Neuroscience at McGill University interested in human-defining cognition, especially language and prosocial behaviours. She joined the lab in January 2021 after graduating First Class Honours from a B.A. & Sc. in Cognitive Science at McGill University. Her current research efforts are focused on applying tools from Big Data analytics to answer long-standing neuroscience questions in population datasets. As part of her master’s degree, Chloé is investigating the co-variation between the hippocampus and default network in populations of healthy individuals at risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Outside the lab, Chloé enjoys learning how to cook new vegan recipes and salsa dancing.

Enning is interested in how neuroscience can boost AI techniques and how AI could help solve neuroscience problems. Currently, he is working on representation learning problems of neuroimaging. Fun Fact: One of his hobbies is cooking and he wishes to have a fine dining restaurant in the future.

Kimia is starting her Master’s in the Integrated Program of Neuroscience at McGill University after receiving her bachelor’s in biomedical engineering. She dedicated her undergraduate studies to create the McGill Biodesign team and worked on transformational applications in biotechnology. Now, she is using machine learning techniques to investigate a variety of neuroscience questions at the population scales and discover statistical patterns in large datasets.

Karam Ghanem is a Master’s student in Biomedical Engineering at McGill University. He finished his Bachelor’s degree in Engineering Physics at McMaster University where he immersed himself in the application of physics in a number of engineering and scientific fields. Karam worked as a Firmware Engineer on the R&D team at a telecommunications company where he developed his engineering skillset. He developed a curiosity for the role of the human brain in relation to the physical world and human experiences and wants to answer his own questions with his research. He is currently investigating different ways of applying Diffusion Models on medical datasets in Dr. Bzdok’s lab. Karam has a love for music; he plays the oud and dabbles with other instruments.

Justin is a student in the Biological & Biomedical Engineering Master’s program at McGill. Prior to joining the lab, he completed his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering at Queen’s University and worked as a sales engineer for Cisco Systems focused on cybersecurity solutions. Currently, he is developing a data-driven machine learning approach to perform a phenome-wide investigation of population-level drivers behind adolescent brain and cognitive development. Factors of equity, diversity, and inclusion are a focal point of this investigation. In his free time he enjoys music, reading, and getting outside to ski and hike.

Zilong is starting his MSc in Neuroscience at McGill University, after graduating from Honors Cognitive Science also at McGill. He is interested in understanding human higher cognitive functions by applying various machine learning methods on large population data. Currently he is investigating the relationship between different cerebellum subregions and cortical areas to learn more about the novel functions recently discovered in cerebellum. In his free time, Zilong enjoys meeting people and welcomes any outdoor activities.

Nicole is a Master’s student in the Biological & Biomedical Engineering program, and she was selected for the inaugural cohort of McCall MacBain Scholars at McGill. She graduated from Queen’s University in spring of 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, specializing in Biomedical Computing. Prior to joining the lab, Nicole worked at IBM as a software developer for the Watson Orchestrate AI team, where she gained hands-on experience with machine learning algorithms and automation tools. Nicole has a strong connection to EDI initiatives as she founded the Queen’s Student Diversity Project at her alma mater and collaborated with the undergraduate admissions and recruitments office to encourage students of diverse backgrounds to pursue their post-secondary studies at Queen’s. She now hopes to bridge her interest in machine learning with her passion for EDI initiatives to introduce the Neuroscience community to diversity-aware population modeling of large-scale datasets via Bayesian hierarchical regression. In her free time, she likes dancing, boxing, content creation, and watching Korean dramas!

Shambhavi Aggarwal is a student in the Biological & Biomedical Engineering Master’s program at McGill University. She obtained her undergraduate degree in Information Technology, during which she cultivated her interest in Machine Learning and Computer Vision. Her passion led her to pursue research internships in Computer Vision and Quantum Machine Learning at IISc Bangalore and Purdue University, respectively. After graduation, she applied her skills by working as a Computer Vision Engineer at Claritas HealthTech, where she used deep learning techniques to analyze medical data. Her ambition is to expand her knowledge of machine learning algorithms and explore how they can be applied to medical data. During her free time, she relishes activities such as music, singing, and cooking, while also engaging in interesting conversations with people.