Trainees
Atena Akbari
Postdoctoral FellowBiography: Atena is a postdoctoral associate in Professor Ravi Menon lab. She completed her PhD in Australia at the University of Queensland, where she gained expertise in modeling BOLD and VASO laminar signals in the human brain, advancing the understanding of the complex neurovascular mechanisms underlying neural activity. In line with her PhD research, she is interested in high-resolution fMRI (laminar fMRI) and its applications in neuroscience. She explores both BOLD and non-BOLD MR contrasts to study brain function. In addition, her research includes developing and applying non-invasive methods for perfusion imaging at high magnetic field in both healthy and neurological conditions, such as multiple sclerosis.
Reza Babaloo
Postdoctoral AssociateBiography: Reza is a Postdoctoral Associate in Professor Ravi Menon’s lab. He earned his PhD from Bilkent University in Turkey, where he conducted research on MRI gradient systems and peripheral nerve stimulation. His current work focuses on improving RF coil performance using metamaterials.
Dana Broberg
PhD CandidateBiography: Dana is a PhD Candidate in Medical Biophysics under the supervision of Dr. Robert Bartha. She completed her undergraduate degree in Medical Biophysics at Western University. Her current project is focused on determining the neural correlates of connected speech in neurodegenerative diseases using diffusion MRI.
Anthony Chu
MSc StudentBiography: Anthony is a MSc student in Neuroscience supervised by Dr. Corey Baron. He received his undergraduate degree in the Honours specialization in Neuroscience program here at Western University. During his fourth year, Anthony developed an interest in medical imaging, specifically with MRI, with regards to detecting different medical conditions. His work involves investigating microscopic fractional anisotropy in TLE patients.
Alicia Cronin
PhD CandidateResearch Interests / Specializations: Medical BioPhysics
Biography: Alicia is a PhD candidate under the supervision of Robert Bartha. She has completed her Bachelor of Science in Biological and Medical Physics with a minor in Mathematics at the University of Guelph. Her current project revolves around the development of a retrospective correction algorithm that will improve the line shape and spectral quality of magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) in the spinal cord. She is also working on characterizing cortical plasticity in patients with cervical spondylotic myelopathy.
Dilyar Deniz
MESc StudentBiography: I am a master's student in biomedical engineering, supervised by Dr. Lau and Dr. Khan. My research focuses on mapping the limbic connectome using diffusion MRI, improving imaging reliability for studying neurological disorders. I hold a BMSc from Western University with an interest in biomedical imaging.
Audrey Dureux
Postdoctoral AssociateBiography: Audrey is a Postdoctoral associate at professor Stefan Everling’s lab. She completed her PhD in France at the Lyon neuroscience research center where she studied the social dimension of the region of space near the body, termed peripersonal space. She used a multiscale approach to investigate how emotional faces in peripersonal space affects perceptual abilities using behavioral measures, physiological state using measures of pupil diameter and heart rate, and brain activity using fMRI. Being particularly interested on the comparative approach between species, she used similar experimental procedures in both humans and macaques to compare cerebral activity with fMRI. Her current project is to study social interactions in marmosets by investigating neural network of the emotional processing of facial expressions in marmosets using fMRI, associated with their impact on physiological responses.
Amr Eed
Postdoctoral FellowBiography: Amr is a Post doc in the Menon lab. His research involves scanning awake rodent models.
Farhad Fallah
MSc StudentBiography: I received my Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology. I started my Master's degree in January 2025 in Biomedical Engineering under the supervision of Dr. Khan in the Khan Computational Imaging Lab. My research interests lie in medical image analysis and processing, as well as deploying deep learning models for medical applications
Rebekah Gilliland
PhD CandidateBiography: Rebekah is a PhD candidate in Neuroscience under the supervision of Dr. Stefan Everling. She completed her BSc in Neuroscience at Western University. Her research focuses on the role of area 32 in vocal communication in marmosets. She uses ultra-high density electrodes to record the activity of area 32 neurons in awake marmosets while they engage in various components of vocal communication (i.e. listening, speaking, and conversing).
Jake Hamilton
PhD CandidateBiography: Jake is a PhD candidate in Medical Biophysics under the supervision of Dr. Corey Baron. He completed his BSc at Queen's University, receiving a major in Life Sciences and a minor in Physics. His current work involves studying the link between repeated traumatic brain injury and dementia using advanced diffusion MRI techniques
Azadeh Jafari
PhD CandidateBiography: Azadeh is a PhD candidate in the neuroscience program at Western University. Her current work revolves around the vocalization of marmosets and their fMRI analysis being supervised by Dr. Everling. She received her B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering-Electronics from K.N.Toosi University and completed her M.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering at Tehran Polytechnic (Amirkabir University of Technology)."
Kruti Joshi
MSc StudentBiography: Kruti is a master’s Student in Dr. Ravi Menon’s Lab. She completed her undergraduate studies at Wilfrid Laurier University with a double major in Biology and Psychology. She completed her undergraduate thesis in Neuroscience where she developed her interest in behavior and cognition. Her current project investigates cognitive differences across awake and anesthetized mice imaging using fMRI.
Brad Karat
PhD CandidateBiography: Brad is a PhD candidate in the Neuroscience graduate program, supervised by Dr. Ali Khan. He completed his undergraduate degree in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour from McMaster University. His current research focuses on microstructural modelling of the hippocampus in native and flattened space using diffusion MRI.
Milad Rahimpour
PhD CandidateBiography: Milad previously completed a master's program in Medical Physiology at TUMS. His current research, as a PhD candidate in the field of Neuroscience, working with Professor Stefan Everling, explores the neural dynamics of social communication. He focuses on how specific areas of the brain integrate auditory perception and vocal production during vocal interactions in marmosets using innovative techniques such as high-density neural recordings.
Sam Laxer
Masters StudentBiography: Sam is a PhD candidate in the Medical Biophysics program working in Dr. Menon's lab. He previously completed a BSc in Life Physics from the University of Waterloo. His current work involves investigating neurochemical dynamics in the mouse brain and how they give rise to the functional magnetic resonance imaging signal.
Filipe Ledo
PhD CandidateBiography: In June 2023, Filipe earned an Honours Bachelor's degree in Specialized Biophysics from York University. During his undergraduate studies, he developed a deep passion for medical imaging, particularly MRI, and cultivated a strong interest in experimental research. In September 2023, he began his PhD. in the CAMPEP Medical Biophysics Program at Western University, co-supervised by Dr. Ravi Menon and Dr. Corey Baron. His research focuses on using spiral acquisitions and novel reconstruction methods to achieve ultra-high-resolution functional MRI.
Violet Liu
MD/PhD candidateBiography: Violet Liu is a MD/PhD candidate in the department of Neuroscience, working in the labs of Dr. Jonathan Lau and Dr. Ali Khan. She has previously obtained a Bachelor of Medical Sciences and an MSc in Biochemistry from Western University. Currently, her research interests include the characterization of the human subcortex for neurosurgical targeting and visualization, neuroimaging registration, and neuroanatomy.
Margaret Loewith
MSc StudentBiography: Maggie is a MSc student under the supervision of Dr. Stefan Everling at the Laboratory for Neural Circuits and Cognitive Control. She earned her undergraduate degree in Life Sciences from Queen’s University. Her current research focuses on functional neuroimaging of marmosets, with an emphasis on social cognition, action-observation, and chemogenetics.
Renil Mathew
PhD CandidateBiography: Renil is a Neuroscience PhD student working with Dr. Ravi S. Menon. He holds an MSc in Physics from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU, Trondheim), where he studied human hemodynamic responses using 7T fMRI during virtual navigation at the Kavli Institute of Systems Neuroscience. Currently, Renil is focused on developing multimodal imaging techniques at a 9.4T preclinical scanner using non-human primates, with applications aimed for clinical human scanners.
Farah Mushtaha
Masters StudentBiography: I'm co supervised by Corey Baron and Ali Khan. I did my undergrad at western in medical biophysics and doing my masters right now. I work on investigating diffusion MRI with Spiral trajectories.
Ricardo Rios-Carrillo
Postdoctoral AssociateBiography: Ricardo Rios-Carrillo is a postdoctoral associate in Corey Baron's lab. He received his PhD in biomedical sciences in Mexico, where he also did a bachelor’s degree as a biomedical engineer and a master’s degree in computer science. His current research focuses on the application of advanced diffusion weighted MRI techniques in neurodegeneration and in the development of new contrasts mechanisms that combine diffusion and relaxometry MRI techniques.
Jesleen Saini
MSc StudentBiography: Jesleen is an MSc student in Neuroscience, supervised by Dr. Stefan Everling. She completed her BSc at Wilfrid Laurier University, receiving a major in Honours Biology. Her current work involves in using immunohistochemical and microscopy techniques to visualize the propagation of a-synuclein in marmoset.
Mayuri Sothynathan
MScBiography: Mayuri is a MSc Candidate in Medical Biophysics under the supervision of Dr. Corey Baron. Previously, she received an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Western University. Her current work involves developing non-Cartesian acquisitions for diffusion MRI.
Alaa Taha
PhD CandidateResearch Interests / Specializations: Biomedical Engineering
Biography: Alaa is a PhD candidate in Biomedical Engineering supervised by Dr. Jonathan C. Lau and Dr. Ali Khan. He completed his BMSc in Interdisciplinary Medical Sciences here at Western University. His current research interests revolve around improving the accuracy and efficacy of neurosurgical procedures using ultra-high field imaging (>=7-Tesla) combined with AI-based methods.
Mary Taylor
PhD CandidateBiography: Mary is a PhD candidate in the Neuroscience Graduate Program, Supervised by Dr. Ali Khan and Maryam Nouri. She completed her undergraduate degree at Brock University in Neuropsychology. Her work is focused on the use of functional and structural imaging to characterize and monitor network patterns in patients with focal epilepsy, as well as relating these patterns to cognitive performance.
Esmin Unaran
PhD CandidateResearch Interests / Specializations: NeuroScience
Biography: Esmin Unaran is a PhD student under the supervision of Dr. Ravi Menon. Her research focuses on identifying early biomarkers of Alzheimer’s Disease using advanced techniques such as resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) and immunofluorescence.
Mahdieh Varvani Farahani
PhD CandidateResearch Interests / Specializations: Neuroscience
Biography: Mahdieh is a PhD candidate in Neuroscience, supervised by Dr. Ali Khan. She completed her BSc in Neuroscience at Western University. Her current research focus is on characterising the relationship between memory functioning and hippocampal structure and function in individuals with depression.
Raymond Wong
PhD CandidateBiography: Raymond is a PhD candidate and a BrainsCAN Scholar in Dr. Stefan Everling’s lab. He completed his BSc in Neuroscience - Neurobiology at Brock University. His research focuses on investigating the frontal eye fields microcircuitry with high-density neural recordings, as well as working memory in the prefrontal cortex of awake behaving marmosets.
Mahmoud Yaser
MESc StudentBiography: Mahmoud is an MESc student in Biomedical Engineering at Western University, supervised by Dr. Ali Khan and Dr. Emma Duerden. He holds a BSc in Biomedical Engineering from Cairo University. His current research focuses on developing automatic hippocampal subfield segmentation for neonatal brain MRI scans.
Mohamed Yousif
Masters Student
Alessandro Zanini
Postdoctoral AssociateBiography: I completed my PhD at the Claude Bernard University of Lyon, France, where I studied the behavioural effects and fMRI responses induced by the presentation of multisensory stimuli within the peripersonal space (or space surrounding the body) in human and non-human primates. My current research focuses on the behavioural, cognitive and MRI repercussions of alpha-synuclein propagation in marmosets' brain.
