People

Ruben Coen-Cagli. I am Associate Professor in the Department of Systems and Computational Biology and Department of Neuroscience at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. I obtained my degree in theoretical physics from the University of Napoli Federico II in 2005 with a thesis on quantum computing, an interdisciplinary effort to turn the fundamental properties of the microscopic world into a novel computing paradigm. In my graduate work at the same university, I combined eye-tracking experiments, Bayesian modeling and a robotic arm simulator to study eye-hand coordination. In 2008 I started a postdoc with Odelia Schwartz, studying the link between statistical structure in natural images and neuronal responses in visual cortex, in collaboration with Peter Dayan and Adam Kohn. I joined the lab of Alexandre Pouget in 2012 with the SSN-IBRO postdoctoral fellowship, to study the origins of visual cortical and perceptual variability. I joined Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 2016.

contact: ruben.coen-cagli at einsteinmed dot edu

Amirhossein Farzmahdi. My Master's degree is in Electrical Engineering from the Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran (Iran). I completed my PhD at the School of Cognitive Science (SCS), IPM, under the direction of Winrich Freiwald and Reza Ebrahimpour. During my Master's and PhD studies, I examined how properties of the face-processing network (e.g., mirror-symmetric viewpoint tuning) are generated within computational models.

Currently, I am a postdoctoral fellow at Coen-Cagli Lab. My main interest is to understand how the visual system encodes the complex natural environment. To address this question, I will draw on both descriptive and normative approaches. I, therefore, build models that capture the statistical nature of the natural inputs and evaluate hypotheses by analyzing neural responses. My research is focused on unraveling computational principles underlying contextual modulation in the early visual cortex and generating general insights into how this contributes to encoding natural visual scenes.

Julia Wang. Julia is a postdoc co-advised by Ruben Coen-Cagli and Adam Kohn interested in models of inter-areal communication. She graduated with her B.S. (2019) in Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence from Stanford University. Then she completed her PhD (2023) at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory under Tatiana Engel, where she developed novel deep learning methods to characterize heterogeneity in sleep states across the cortex and in disease states. At Einstein, she is a member of the BETTR program, which trains postdocs in valuable teaching skills and gives them the opportunity to teach at underserved universities in the Bronx. Outside of science, she is passionate about baking, music, art, and serving the disability community.

Linghao Xu. I joined the lab in 2022 after I received my Master’s degree from the University of Rochester, under the supervision of Drs. Ralf Haefner and Greg DeAnglies. I’m interested in the normalization model and relating the uncertainty in visual stimulus with the variability in neural responses. I’m also interested in Bayesian inference in human heading perception and previously worked with Dr. Alan Stocker in my undergraduate study.  

Concetta Brusco is an MSTP student at Einstein. She is interested in computational neuroscience and has previously studied hypoxia in brain tumor cells, and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) as a treatment for addiction.  

Tridib Biswas. MSTP student. Tridib joined the lab in 2023.  Tridib is interested in perceptual segmentation and biologically inspired neural networks.  He has a background working in cell segmentation and image processing for biological images.

Darnell Adrian Williams. Adrian is an MD-PhD student and future physician-scientist with a demonstrated passion for research, leadership, and advocacy. His research interests center around using computational methods to better understand and treat neurological problems. Adrian is particularly interested in identifying and combating healthcare disparities, neuroscience, psychiatric diseases, biomedical imaging, big data, AI/ML, and biotechnology/startups. Previously, Adrian worked in the labs of Jeremy Gunawardena at Harvard Medical School’s Systems Biology Department and Conor Liston at Weill Cornell Medical College, where he studied transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) as a treatment for treatment-resistant depression using neuroimaging and machine learning. He joined the Coen-Cagli lab in 2024. Outside of science and medicine, Adrian enjoys golf, trying new restaurants, art, music, watch collecting, cooking, and being happy.