Education Committee

Rickson Mesquita, Co-chair, is an Associate Professor at the School of Computer Science of the University of Birmingham, UK, and associate researcher at the Brazilian Institute of Neuroscience and Neurotechnology (BRAINN), Brazil. He graduated in Physics at UNICAMP and obtained his Ph.D. in Science at the same University. He was also a research scholar at the Massachusetts General Hospital and a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. He was a pioneer in diffuse optics for neuroscience applications in Brazil and Latin America. He currently leads the Biomedical Optics Lab at UNICAMP, with research interests focused on designing new instrumentation and developing innovative methods for diffuse optics (both fNIRS and DCS) in biological tissue.

Paola Pinti, Co-chair, is the senior research laboratory developer at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck, University of London, UK. She completed her training in biomedical engineering at the Marche Polytechnic University in Italy; she then received her PhD in Functional Neuroimaging from the University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy, and held a postdoctoral position at the Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering at University College London. Her research involves the use of fNIRS to study functional brain activity across the lifespan and in combination with other technologies (e.g., VR, systemic physiology, eye-tracking, motion capture, thermal imaging, etc). More precisely, her technical work focuses on the development and implementation of new algorithms and tools for the analysis of fNIRS data collected in more ecologically-valid settings.

Christophe Grova is Professor in the Department of Physics of Concordia University and a research member of Concordia School of Health (PERFORM center). He received his Engineering and Master degrees in biomedical engineering at the University of Technology of Compiègne (France), followed by a Ph.D. at University of Rennes (France). His areas of expertise are EEG/MEG source localization, multimodal data fusion involving EEG/MEG, fMRI and fNIRS, for application in epilepsy and sleep research. C. Grova is the scientific lead of the physiology platform at PERFORM centre promoting neuroimaging in realistic lifestyle environments using wearable technology (EEG, fNIRS). His team is also handling the development and validation of two software packages: MEM in Brainstorm for EEG/MEG source localization and NIRSTORM for fNIRS data analysis.

Silvia Benavides-Varela is an Assistant Professor at Padua University in Italy. She completed her trainings as biotechnology engineer in Costa Rica and obtained a PhD. in Neuroscience from SISSA, Italy. She then worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the IRCSS San Camillo Hospital in Venice, and the Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception (CNRS & Université Paris Descartes), in Paris, France. Her research focuses on developing new methods for unveiling the initial state of memory capacities in humans, the environmental factors that modulate learning, and the properties of the brain systems that support language and mathematic achievements across the lifespan. She has used a range of neuroimaging techniques, including fNIRS, in combination with behavioral metrics and analyses, both in healthy and in clinical populations. She is a member of the Education Committee of the Society since 2017

Kaja Jasińska is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Brain Organization for Language and Literacy Development (BOLD) Laboratory at the University of Toronto. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology and Neuroscience from the University of Toronto and completed postdoctoral training at Haskins Laboratories. Dr. Jasińska uses behavioral, genetic, and neuroimaging techniques to study neurocognitive development and learning, focusing on mono-, bi-, and multi-lingual language and literacy development in understudied contexts.

Felix Scholkmann received his PhD from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, in 2014. He is a lecturer at the University of Zurich, a research group leader at the Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory of the University Hospital Zurich/University of Zurich, and a research associate at the University of Bern. His research is primarily focused on neurophotonics, with a particular emphasis on functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and NIRS-based cerebral oximetry. He also conducts research in the fields of biomedical signal processing, integrative neuroscience, and physiology.

Sungho Tak is a senior researcher at the Center for Bio-Imaging and Translational Research at the Korea Basic Science Institute. He received his PhD from KAIST (Republic of Korea), focusing on statistical signal processing for fNIRS data. He subsequently trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto and University College London, where he analyzed casual interactions among brain regions. His research focuses on developing and optimizing analysis methods for fNIRS and fMRI signals, and translating these techniques to clinical applications.

Thomas Dresler is a senior researcher at the University of Tuebingen, Germany. He is deputy head of the research group Psychophysiology and Optical Imaging and the Tuebingen site coordinator of the German Center for Mental Health (DZPG). The Psychophysiology and Optical Imaging group started fNIRS research in mental disorders in the 1990s, later expanding its application to educational settings, psychotherapy research and neurofeedback protocols.

John Sunwoo is a research fellow at Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He studied electrical and computer engineering at Auburn University and biomedical engineering at Cornell University and the University of Southern California. He developed wearable computers at the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Korea. His research focuses on brain function/injury monitoring using noninvasive sensors, biosignal processing, and modeling.

Jessica Gemignani is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization of the University of Padua (Italy). After graduating in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Pisa (2014), she was Marie Curie Early Stage Researcher at NIRx Medizintechnik and Technical University of Berlin, where she received her PhD in 2019. She was then post-doctoral researcher at the University of Paris and Marie Curie Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Padua. Her research involves the use of functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) to study functional brain activity, and in particular its applications in the study of early mechanisms of language acquisition. Her work is also focused on the development and validation of tools and methods for the analysis of data collected on newborns and young infants, including the design of novel data-driven strategies based on machine-learning algorithms to further the multimodal integration of fNIRS with other modalities, like EEG.

Yoko Hakuno is a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for the Design of Future Symbiosis, Global Research Institute, Keio University, Japan. She received her MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology from Birkbeck, University of London, and her PhD in Psychology from Keio University. Her research focuses on the development of social brain functions in infants and toddlers, primarily investigating the early neural correlates of social interactions in real-life settings using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS).

Ryssa Moffat is a postdoctoral researcher in the Social Brain Science Lab at ETH Zurich. Her current research explores the emergence of friendships within and across generations, with the overarching aim of reducing loneliness. She has also investigated how physically engaging in movement synchrony shapes movement and aesthetic perceptions, as well as cognitive processes to gain insight into joint action and embodiment. Her other research endeavours have examined children’s perceptions of social robots as companions while learning to read and how degraded speech alters listeners’ recognition of vocal emotions. To address these topics relating to social cognition, she combines behavioural, motion-capture, fNIRS (including hyperscanning), and qualitative methods.

Dalin Yang is a Postdoctoral Associate Researcher at Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University in St. Louis. School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA,  She received her Ph.D. degree in Feb. 2022 from School of Mechanical Engineering, Pusan National University. Her research focuses on noninvasive functional neuroimaging (fNIRS, HD-DOT, EEG), brain disease diagnosis and assessment, transcranial electrical stimulation, neurorehabilitation, brain-computer interface, human brain modelling and reconstruction.

Caterina Marino is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization, University of Padua. Her research focuses on the application of fNIRS to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying speech and music perception at birth and how this early perception integrates with later motor development, exploring the basis of the human ability to move to the rhythm of music. Her projects are engaged in translating scientific findings into concrete actions applicable to early development and education.

Emma Visibelli has a background in Cognitive Neuroscience and is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Padova (Italy), under the supervision of Prof. Silvia Benavides-Varela. Her research investigates the neural mechanisms of verbal memory in newborns and infants during sleep, using a combination of HD-DOT and EEG techniques.

Gal Rozic is a PhD candidate at University College London (UK), under the supervision of Prof. Gabriella Vigliocco and Prof. Antonia Hamilton. She has a background in psychology, language sciences, and neuroscience. Her research investigates abstract language development in children within naturalistic social interactions. She works with multimodal data (including natural language processing, eye gaze, and gestures) and uses fNIRS hyperscanning to understand the behavioural and neural synchronisation patterns underlying children’s learning of novel concepts within face-to-face communication.

Nicholas (Nick) Ross is a Bioengineering PhD student in the Electrical Engineering department at the University of Notre Dame. He is currently developing a wearable frequency domain fNIRS device that can be worn in everyday settings. He is interested in translational research where he wants to move technology from benchtop to bedside and get the technology in the hands of clinicians. Once he graduates, he hopes to secure a job in industry where he develops noninvasive brain computer interface technology that aims to restore limb functionality to those living with paralysis.

Yuanyuan Gao is an Assistant Professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department. Her research focuses are technology development for optical neuroimaging and its clinical applications.
 

Giovani Martins is a postdoctoral researcher in biomedical optics at the Department of Biomedical Engineering of Emory University. He graduated in Physics at UNICAMP, where he also obtained his Ph.D. in Science, working with applications of fNIRS, FD-DOS, and DCS. His research focuses on the development and application of diffuse optical techniques to study human physiology in vivo. He investigates pediatric Sickle Cell Disease and approaches to quantify brain water content using optical methods.