Team
Our team is composed primarily of international students studying in Canada.
We are currently recruiting from different countries including Iran, China, India and others.
Principal Investigator
Russell Butler
Dr. Butler received his Ph.D. from the University of Sherbrooke in 2019 under the supervision of Dr. Kevin Whittingstall. link to thesis. His research focuses primarily on neurovascular coupling using non-invasive brain imaging techniques such as MRI and EEG. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Bishops, funded by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI). link to citations.
Graduate student
Mahta Alipasandi
Mahta has a bachelor's of Audiology from the Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, as well as experience working as a quality control specialist at a hearing aid manufacturing plant. She is currently working towards her MSc. at Bishop's University. Her project involves measuring the EEG response to basic auditory tones in a small cohort of healthy human subjects, to create a dataset that will serve as a baseline for future neurophysiological experiments in the auditory cortex.
Graduate student
Masoud Majidi
Masoud is an experienced web developer and holds a Bachelor's of Computer Engineering from Arak University in Iran. Masoud is currently broadening his skillset by working toward his MSc. at Bishops, using machine learning in python to form a physiological profile linking brain oscillations to heart rate and respiration in the healthy human subject.
Graduate student
Razieh Shahsavar
Razieh graduated with a master's degree in software engineering from the Qeshm International branch of the Islamic Azad University. Her undergraduate studies were done in Computer Engineering (software specialization) at the Shiraz branch of the IAU. Currently, she is working towards her MSc. at Bishops employing deep learning to extract 3d animation skeleton directly from raw video sequence.
Graduate student
Olivier Demers
Olivier received his Bachelor's of Computer Science (with Honors) from Bishops University in 2022, and works as a professor at Cegep de Sherbrooke teaching UI design. He is in the final year of his Masters at Bishops investigating the neuroanatomical correlates of the blood flow velocity in the human carotid and aorta.
Graduate student
Sylvie Blouin
Sylvie holds an MSc. in human physiology from the University of Sherbrooke as well as a Bachelor's in Neuroscience from Bishop's University. She is a recipient of the USRA summer research funding award. Sylvie started her MSc. in computer science at Bishops in Winter '23. Her project involves multi-modal analysis of human brainwave and structural data to discern gyral features from neuronal oscillation patterns in the healthy population.
Graduate student
Sanaz Ghaffari
Sanaz holds an Associate's degree in information and communication technology from the University of Applied Science and Technology in Iran, where she also completed her Bachelor's in IT. Currently, Sanaz is working towards her MSc. of Computer Science at Bishop's University. Her project involves combining physiological recordings (eye tracking, heartrate, respiration and GSR) with EEG in order to uncover the physiological correlates of variability in brainwave oscillations across the population.
Graduate student
Nima Moradi
Nima holds a BSc in computer engineering (software specialization) from the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. Currently, Nima is working towards obtaining his MSc. in computer science from Bishops. His project involves designing a deep neural network capable for performing blind source separation on multi-channel EEG data in order to remove artifacts such as eyeblinks and muscle movement from the EEG signal.
Graduate student
Steven Poulin
Steven completed his undergraduate degree at Bishops and is currently working on his MSc. under the supervision of Dr. Butler and Dr. Bruno Courtemanche. His project involves navigating a submersible drone in the lakes of the Eastern Townships to acquire photographic data on invasive species, and then applying convolutional neural networks to the dataset in order to automatically detect images containing invasive species.
Graduate student
Yichen Yang
Yichen holds a Bachelor's from the Huazhong University School of Software with a major in software engineering. He is an experienced game developer with several published games, and an MSc. student at Bishops. His master's project involves applying a deep attention network to the problem of extracting 3d human animation skeletons from raw video input.
Graduate student
Siyuan Tian
Siyuan holds a Bachelor's in Mechanical Design Manufacturing and Automation from Chongqing University in China. He is currently a masters student at Bishops working on improving gray matter segmentation of fMRI images. The aim of Siyuan's research is to extract an accurate gray matter mask directly from BOLD image contrast. He is applying a deep convolutional network (U-net architecture) to this problem, using multi-modal datasets (gray matter + fMRI) to build a ground truth and train the network.
Graduate student
Arian Yavari
Arian obtained his Bachelor's of Science from the Tabriz branch of the Islamic Azad University in Computer Engineering technology. He is currently an MSc student at Bishops. His project involves applying deep learning to the problem of motor action prediction based on EEG signal oscillations from the motor cortex. Arian aims to construct a model capable of recognizing different human motor actions from the raw EEG signal alone, with eventual application as a brain-computer interface.
Graduate student
Salar Rezayani
Salar graduated from the Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran with a degree in Aerospace Engineering. His interests range from virtual reality to basketball and fine cuisine to digital circuitry. He is currently working on his MSc. at Bishops building a custom EEG system from first principles using basic circuitry.
Graduate student
Chen Li
Chen holds a Bachelor's of information technology specializing in network and cybersecurity from Flinders University in Australia. He is currently a master's student at Bishops, working on combining long-term photoplethysmography data recorded from smartwatch with MRI scans in the same group of participants. Chen aims to predict features of an individual's cardiovascular system such as peak carotid and aorta velocity based on smartwatch recording alone.
Graduate student
Fuwang He
Fuwang holds a Bachelor's of Engineering in Software from Shanxi University in China. He is an avid gamer and financial market enthusiast. Fuwang is an MSc. student at Bishops, and his project involves applying deep learning algorithms for prediction of stock market price action.
Graduate student
Maryam Bayataz
Maryam holds a Master's degree in electrical engineering from the Islamic Azad University (South Tehran branch). She completed her undergrad studies in electrical engineering at the Technical Teacher's Training College in Tehran. Currently, Maryam is working towards her MSc. degree at Bishops, her project involves detection and removal of motion artifacts from photoplethysmography data recorded from the optical sensor of a smartwatch.
Lab Alumni
Maryam Alipasandi (graduated 2022) link to thesis
Mehdi Zoghinia (graduated 2021) link to thesis
Farnaz Orooji (graduated 2021) link to thesis
Yan Jian (graduated 2021) link to thesis