Marcel Just Ph.D.

D.O. Hebb Professor of Psychology and the Center's Director.

His current research develops and tests theories of how we neurally represent individual concepts and larger units of knowledge. The main basic approach applies machine learning and factor analysis to fMRI data. The two applications that are being explored are the use of altered concept representations to identify people with suicidal ideation and the learning of new technical concepts in work and college settings. He is pleased to be part of the rapidly advancing field of cognitive neuroimaging that has repeatedly and deeply enriched the understanding of mind and brain.

Email just@cmu.edu

Selected Publications: CCBI publications list

Robert Mason, Ph.D.

is a Senior Research Psychologist. His current research explores the cognitive and neural mechanisms through which scientific concepts are learned. His broader research program focuses on the interaction of learning, language and the brain during the instructional process. He uses functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to study cortical networks that subserve reading and learning. He has studied these networks in English speakers, bilinguals and individuals with autism. His Ph.D. is from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and he previously worked at the Learning Research & Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh.

Email rmason@andrew.cmu.edu

Selected Publications: CCBI publications list

Bruno Leitao

is visiting the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging (CCBI) this fall, through the CMU Portugal program. He is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute for Nuclear Sciences Applied to Health (ICNAS) at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. At the CCBI, he is exploring data-driven, machine-learning approaches to analyze real-time functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (rt-fMRI) neurofeedback data. He is also exploring functional connectivity patterns associated with neurofeedback paradigms. His broader research interests include neurorehabilitation, reward mechanisms and network controllability.

Email migueldireito@gmail.com

Vladimir Cherkassky

is a Scientific Specialist. He performs complex data analyses and develops methods and software packages for fMRI data analysis and machine learning. He also supervises all software/hardware development for the CCBI and performs Unix system administration.

Email cherkassky@cmu.edu

Selected Publications: CCBI publications list

Robert Vargas

graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio with a B.A. in Psychology. He went on to do research at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio developing causal modeling techniques using electrocorticographic data. He is interested in understanding the neural structures behind conceptual representations and how they underpin language by utilizing multivariate techniques on fMRI data. One of his projects focuses on the neural representation of abstract concepts.

Email robertov@andrew.cmu.edu

Selected Publications: CCBI publications list

David A. Brent

is the Endowed Chair in Suicide Studies and Professor of Psychiatry, Pediatrics, Epidemiology, and Clinical and Translational Science at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He brings outstanding expertise in child and adolescent psychiatry and suicidology. His research focuses on the assessment, causes, and prevention of young adult suicide and suicidal behavior. He has been a close CCBI collaborator on the neurosemantic assessment of concept alterations associated with suicidal ideation.

Jeffrey Cohn

Jeffrey Cohn is Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry, and Intelligent Systems at the University of Pittsburgh and Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon. He leads interdisciplinary and inter-institutional efforts to develop advanced methods of automatic analysis and synthesis of facial expression and prosody and applies those tools to research in human emotion, social development, nonverbal communication, psychopathology, and biomedicine.

Tim Keller, Ph.D.

is a Senior Research Associate with expertise in fMRI. He is working on all of the fMRI projects. He has just the right computational skills to deal with the intensive data processing associated with fMRI data, as well as neuroanatomical knowledge for data interpretation. His substantive interests are in working memory, language, and spatial thinking. His Ph.D. is from the University of Missouri. He was previously an NIMH Post-Doctoral Fellow for two years.

Email tk37@andrew.cmu.edu

Selected CCBI Publications: CCBI publications list

Nancy J. Minshew, Ph.D.

Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, is a research neurologist who has developed a theory of cognitive and neural deficits in autism. Her research has completed large-scale neuropsychologic studies, eye movement and posturography studies, structural MRI, and MRS (magnetic resonance spectroscopy) of high functioning autistic individuals. This research has resulted in the definition of deficits in complex cognitive abilities across domains with the exception of the visuospatial domain and evidence of neocortical systems as the primary site of CNS dysfunction in autism.

Email minshewnj@msx.upmc.edu

Investigator's Homepage: http://www.wpic.pitt.edu/research/CeFAR/

Selected CCBI Publications:

Tom Mitchell, Ph.D.

Professor in the Department of Machine Learning. One of the leading figures in machine learning, his research employs various statistical and analytic methods in an effort to construct algorithms that learn from experience. His work with the CCBI conjoins machine learning with neuroimaging to help form theories of brain function, using classifiers to find stimulus unique patterns of brain activation. In essence, the machine learning algorithms are being trained to detect cognitive states.

Email tom.mitchell@cmu.edu

Reinhard Schumacher, Ph.D.

Reinhard Schumacher, Professor of Physics at Carnegie Mellon, specializes in nuclear and particle physics, particularly quark interaction physics. He has been an active collaborator in the study of how advanced physics concepts are neurally represented in the brains of practicing physicists.

Email schumacher@cmu.edu

Maureen Hilton

is a Research Assistant for the CCBI. She received a B.S. degree in Cognitive and Brain Sciences from Tufts University and a B.F.A. degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her previous research experience and interests include visual perception, attention, and linguistics. She plays a large role in the testing of fMRI participants and in analyses of fMRI and behavioral data.

Email maureenh@cmu.edu

Sharina Lall

Sharina Lall is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, with a B.S. in Cognitive Neuroscience and an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering. She is now a research associate with CCBI. She is involved with conducting the lab's fMRI and EEG experiments involved in identifying neural signatures for a variety of concepts, as well as analyzing the imaging data.

Email slall@andrew.cmu.edu

Elektra Petrakis

Elektra Petrakis is an undergraduate research assistant studying Cognitive Science with a concentration in Artificial Intelligence and minors in Human-Computer Interaction and Business Administration. At the CCBI, she is using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning to help identify individuals with suicidal thoughts and behavior. Previously she had worked at Columbia University’s Division of Molecular Imaging and Neuropathology assisting with updating their database of suicide victims’ brains.

Email kpetraki@andrew.cmu.edu

Paulette Williams

a graduate of Geneva College with a B.S. in biology, is the Administrative Coordinator who provides administrative support for most of the projects. She has been a longstanding member of the CCBI playing a large role in its efficient administration.

Email pwilliams@cmu.edu

Augusto Buchweitz, Ph.D.

Professor at the Pontifical Catholic University (PUCRS), Brazil and researcher at the Brain Institute (InsCer) at PUCRS. He is a former Post-Doctoral Fellow at the CCBI who worked on fMRI studies of bilingual text comprehension, neurosemantics, and multi-tasking.

Email augusto.buchweitz@pucrs.br

Selected CCBI Publications: CCBI publications list

Cleotilde (Coty) Gonzalez, Ph.D.

Research Professor in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences. Director of the Dynamic Decision Making Laboratory. She earned her Ph. D. from Texas Tech University. Her research goals are: to understand decision-making cognitive processes in complex, real-time, dynamic environments and to help people make better decisions in these situations. Her research is mainly behavioral, using realistic computer simulations. Other methods include computational cognitive modeling, eye tracking, and fMRI..

Email coty@cmu.edu

Investigator's Homepage: http://www.hss.cmu.edu/departments/sds/ddmlab

Selected CCBI Publications:

Rajesh Kumar Kana, Ph.D.

Professor at the University of Alabama and Director of its Autism Research Center. He is a former CCBI Post-Doctoral Fellow working on fMRI studies of autism. His primary research interest is to explore the neural substrates of social cognition and the impact of social cognition on language, communication and other cognitive functions in autism. He uses functional and structural MRI to study the neural architecture of autism.

Email rkana@uab.edu

Selected CCBIPublications:

Hidetsugu (Hide) Komeda, Ph.D.

Associate Professor at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo. His Ph.D. is from Kyoto University, Japan. He has been working on fMRI and behavioral studies of cognitive, perceptual, and social processes in autism. He plans to spend his sabbatical year (starting April 2021) at the CCBI.

Email komeda@ephs.aoyama.ac.jp

Investigator's Homepage: http://researchmap.jp/komeda

Selected CCBI Publications:

Hideya Koshino, Ph.D.

Professor at California State University at San Bernadino. He is a former CCBI Post-Doctoral Fellow working in the area of attention, executive function, spatial information, and autism. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas.

Email hkoshino@csusb.edu

Selected CCBI Publications: CCBI publications list

Yanni Liu, Ph.D.

is Research Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan Psychiatry Department. She completed her PhD at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her doctoral research focused on the executive function and decision-making processes of normal people and OCD patients. She was using fMRI to investigate the perceptual superiority and executive dysfunction in Autism spectrum disorder.

Email yanniliu@umich.edu

Selected CCBI Publications:

Sharlene Newman, Ph.D.

Director of the Alabama Life Research Institute at the University of Alabama. She earned her Ph.D. at the Biomedical Engineering Department of the University of Alabama at Birmingham and is a former CCBI Post-Doctoral Fellow. She spent many years as a faculty member at Indiana University. Her research interests are in the areas of fMRI of language processes, problem-solving, and planning.

Email sdnewman@indiana.edu

Investigator's Homepage: https://psych.indiana.edu/directory/faculty/newman-sharlene.html

Selected CCBI Publications: CCBI publications list

Susana Novais-Santos, Ph.D.

is a former CCBI Postdoctoral Fellow. She obtained her first Master's in Computer Science and Engineering at Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal. Susana then received an MSc in Engineering and Physical Science in Medicine at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of London, UK. She obtained her PhD in Bioengineering (Neuroengineering) at the University of Pennsylvania. Her areas of expertise are language processing, cognition, executive resources, strategic planning and decision-making.

Email snovais@andrew.cmu.edu

Chantel Prat, Ph.D.

Professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, with appointments in Psychology and at the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences. Chantel is a former member of the CCBI. Her research investigates the nature of biological constraints on information processing, with an emphasis on the neural correlates of individual differences in language comprehension abilities. Her current research employs the combination of fMRI, TMS, DTI, and behavioral paradigms to investigate the neural basis of individual differences in language and cognition.

Email csprat@u.washington.edu

Selected Publications:

Svetlana Shinkareva, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina. She is a former CCBI Post-Doctoral Fellow. Dr. Shinkareva's research focuses on the development and application of quantitative methods to neuroimaging data. Her current interests include applying machine learning methods to fMRI data to study the neural basis of semantic knowledge representation.

Email shinkareva@sc.edu

Selected Publications:

Jing Wang, Ph.D.

was a CCBI postdoctoral associate. Her primary research interests were in the brain basis of conceptual representation, and the application of multivariate methods to neuroimaging and eye movement data. Her current work used fMRI and machine learning methods to investigate the knowledge representation in various semantic contexts. Jing received her PhD from the University of South Carolina. She is a Research Scientist in Liulishuo, an emerging AI+education company based in Shanghai.

Email jingwanggold@gmail.com

Selected CCBI Publications:

Diane Williams, Ph.D.

worked on behavioral and fMRI studies of cognitive and linguistic processing in individuals with autism under the mentorship of Dr. Just. She has a Research Career Development Award from the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. Dr. Williams completed her doctoral work at Bowling Green State University in Ohio in Speech-Language Pathology. She was a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Nancy Minshew at the University of Pittsburgh, and continues to collaborate with Dr. Minshew on a number of studies with high-functioning adolescents and adults with autism. Dr. Williams has more than 30 years of clinical experience with individuals with autism. She is Department Head of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Penn State.

Email dlw81@psu.edu

Selected CCBI Publications:

Ying Yang, Ph.D.

was a postdoctoral associate at the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging. She received her Ph.D. in 2012 from the University of Pittsburgh working with Connie Tompkins. She worked in a brain-computer interface lab at the University of Pittsburgh, focusing on neural representations of physical actions in motor-related areas. Her CCBI research focused on decoding sentences in several languages from their fMRI signature. She is the Scientific Director of a large private educational corporation, TAL, in China.

Email yingyang001@100tal.com