Members

Dr. Tatsuya Haga

Staff Scientist

E-mail: tatsuya dot haga3 at oist dot jp

I received my PhD degree in information science and technology from The University of Tokyo in 2014. After that, I started to work on modeling of sequential memory processing in hippocampal neural networks as a post-doc researcher in Center for Brain Science at RIKEN. I joined OIST in 2020.

My current interest is to understand how dynamics of biological neural network systems can process high-level concepts and structured knowledge.

Dr. Ibrahim Alsolami

Post-Doctoral Researcher

E-mail: ibrahim dot alsolami at oist dot jp
ORCID: 0000-0003-0506-3150

I did my PhD at Oxford University (2014) in engineering science, master’s degree at the University of Waterloo (2010) in electrical and computer engineering, and bachelor’s degree at KFUPM (2004) in electrical engineering. Additionally, I worked as a PostDoc at KAUST, electrical engineer at Aramco, and did my co-op at Ericsson.

My interdisciplinary research focuses on studying neural network dynamics and codes from an information-theoretic perspective. What I am ultimately interested in is how information is represented in the brain and reliably communicated among neurons.

Dr. Milena Menezes Carvalho

Post-Doctoral Researcher

E-mail: m dot menezes at oist dot jp
Website: https://milenamc.github.io/

Before coming to Japan, I pursued both my BSc in Computational Physics and my MSc in Physics at the São Carlos Institute of Physics, University of São Paulo. From my very first undergraduate research project I have been interested in computational neuroscience and its interplay with statistical physics, staying in the same field to this day.

I'm particularly interested in modeling, simulation, characterization and analysis of neuronal activity in spiking neuronal networks, as well as characterization of neuronal avalanches and critical phenomena in artificial and biological neuronal networks. Moreover, I recently defended my doctoral thesis at the Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo, on a multicompartmental dendritic integration scheme for extraction of temporal features in a input stream.

Dr. Daniel Muller-Komorowska

Post-Doctoral Researcher

E-mail: daniel dot muller at oist dot jp
Website: https://twitter.com/scidanm

I started my postdoc at the Neural Coding and Brain Computing Unit in August of 2022. During my PhD I worked on biophysically realistic models of hippocampal microcircuits and how they can distinguish similar memories. My current research program is primarily about sequence generation and replay. It is known that some brain cells fire in a particular order during behavior and their sequence can be replayed later. I want to find out how replay can be used efficiently to learn new behaviors and tasks in spiking neuronal networks. In the future I also plan to branch out into neuromorphic computations and hardware.

In my free time I play video games, learn about climate change and about decarbonizing energy systems.

Thomas Burns

Ph.D. Student

E-mail: thomas dot burns at oist dot jp
Website: https://tfburns.com

I joined the Neural Coding and Brain Computing Unit in May 2019 as a PhD student. My current research involves building and evaluating simulated neural networks and artificial intellgence systems.

Before coming to OIST, I graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) majoring in physiology, a Master of Bioethics, and then a Master of Philosophy by Research (Neuroscience) at Monash University, Australia. I also worked at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland as a bioethics fellow.

Gastón Sivori

Ph.D. Student

E-mail: gaston dot sivori at oist dot jp

Greetings, adventurer. Yond which endues thee h're, hast hath brought me h're too. I joined this Research Unit in September 2019 as a PhD student. My research interests are straight-forward: what kind of computations underlie sensory perception and how cortical probabilistic computations endow us with conscious experience.

As an Electronic Engineer and former bio-engineering researcher at UTN.BA, I modelled cardiovascular dynamics and worked on the assessment of cardiovascular disease in humans. Now, my interests have shifted to biologically-inspired models of cortical circuits in the hopes of findings answers for the questions above.

However, in my free time, I enjoy climbing walls, playing basketball, jamming jazz tunes, and roleplaying Dungeons & Dragons.

Maria Astrakhan

Ph.D. Student

E-mail: maria dot astrakhan at oist dot jp

In 2017 I obtained my undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Imperial College London and then worked in Brain Stem Cells Laboratory in MIPT (Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology) before joining OIST in 2018.

My continuous involvement in both experimental and theoretical research motivated me to come to here. During my first year, I studied machine learning, analog electronics, and other related disciplines through classes and experience in research units.

My current interest lies in applying neuroscience to improve computational algorithms and applying mathematical approaches to life sciences.

Roman Koshkin

Ph.D. Student

E-mail: roman dot koshkin at oist dot jp

After earning my master's in cognitive psychology from the National Research University HSE (Moscow, Russia) I worked at the Center for Bioelectric Interfaces, where I developed deep learning models for automatic audio content rating based on EEG. In 2020 I joined the NCBC because I believe that progress in AI and beyond depends on our understanding of how information is encoded and processed in biological neural circuits and on our ability to reverse engineer them.

Munenori Takaku

Ph.D. Student

E-mail: munenori dot takaku at oist dot jp

I joined NCBC in Sep 2020 as a PhD student. My main interest is the interaction between hippocampus and several brain region that contributes to memory systems in human brain. To try this challenge, I learned information technology in bachelor at Chiba Univ and Computational neuroscience in master at Univ of Tokyo.

My current research is the modeling of the brain circuit for the memory function which reproduces the results of rodents experiment, with using neuroscience knowledge and machine learning technics.

Hugo Musset

Ph.D. Student

E-mail: hugo dot musset1 at oist dot jp

My studies (Undegraduate and Master's) involved exclusively biology and neuroscience, with no computational aspects whatsoever. I developed an interest in computational neuroscience after some internships, and got fascinated with the possibilities offered by computational approaches (the absence of long and tedious experimental procedures and preparations is also a big plus). I am now a fully certified Computational Neuroscientist™. My research interests are now in the hippocampus, more specifically how place cells are involved in replay sequences, but I also am very curious about completely different branches of science and epistemology.

Balashwethan Chockalingam

Ph.D. Student

E-mail: chockalingam dot balashwethan at oist dot jp

I completed my BSc in Mathematics and Physics at the University of Chicago in 2019 before coming to Japan and OIST, where I switched to Computational Neuroscience and have since joined the NCBC unit as a PhD student.

My current research involves investigating the role of inhibition in reservoir computing and working with the successor representation to describe the hippocampus. Other current research interests include analytic explorations of the information bottleneck and chunking in the brain.

Administrative Staff

Kiyoko Yamada

Research Unit Administrator

E-mail: kiyoko dot yamada at oist dot jp