NEUROSCIENCE RESEARCH DAY
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Yasmin Hurd, PhD
Dr. Yasmin Hurd is the Director of the Addiction Institute within the Mount Sinai Behavioral Health System as well as the Ward Coleman Chair of Translational Neuroscience and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. Dr. Hurd is an internationally renowned neuroscientist whose translational research examines the neurobiology of drug abuse and related psychiatric disorders. Her research exploring the neurobiological effects of cannabis and heroin has significantly shaped the field. Using multidisciplinary research approaches, her research has provided unique insights into the impact of developmental cannabis exposure and epigenetic mechanisms underlying the drug’s protracted effects into adulthood and even across generations. Dr. Hurd’s basic science research is complemented by clinical laboratory investigations evaluating the therapeutic potential of novel science-based strategies for the treatment of opioid addiction and related psychiatric disorders. Based on these high impact accomplishments and her advocacy of drug addiction education and health, Dr. Hurd was inducted into the National Academy of Medicine that complements other honors she has received in the field.
Laura Lewis, PhD
Dr. Laura Lewis is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University. Her research develops multimodal approaches for imaging the human brain, and applies them to study the brain networks that regulate sleep, and the consequences of sleep for brain function. She completed her Ph.D. in Neuroscience at MIT, where she studied neural circuit mechanisms of sleep and anesthesia. She then conducted postdoctoral work at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University, where she used new fast imaging techniques to image subsecond brain dynamics in humans. Her research has been recognized by awards such as the Society for Neuroscience Peter and Patricia Gruber International Research Award, the One Mind Rising Star Award, the Searle Scholar Award, the Sloan Fellowship, and the Pew Scholar Award.
FACULTY LECTURES
Yalda Mohsenzadeh, PhD
Dr. Yalda Mohsenzadeh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and a core member of The Brain and Mind Institute at Western University, London, ON, Canada. She is also a faculty affiliate with Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Toronto, ON, Canada. Before joining Western, she was a postdoctoral associate in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) and McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA. Prior to that, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Vision Research at York University, Toronto, ON, Canada. Yalda received her PhD in statistical machine learning in 2014 from Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. Her research is interdisciplinary, spanning artificial intelligence, computer vision and cognitive computational neuroscience, and investigating human perception and memory using a combination of human neuroimaging (fMRI and MEG/EEG), behavior, computational modeling, and machine learning.
Blake Butler, PhD
Dr. Blake Butler is an assistant professor in the department of psychology at Western University, and an investigator at the National Centre for Audiology and the Children's Health Research Institute. Dr. Butler and his research team are interested in the role of experience & plasticity in the typical and atypical development of sensory systems, with a focus on hearing loss and restoration. Their program combines behavioural, neuroimaging, and histological approaches in humans and animal models to examine how the structure and function of sensory cortices are shaped by early development.
Sue Peters, PhD
Dr. Sue Peters is a Scientist at Parkwood Institute, and Assistant Professor in the School of Physical Therapy at Western University. She completed her PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences (Neuroimaging and Neurophysiology) at the University of British Columbia in 2018, and Master’s in Physical Therapy at Western University. As a physiotherapist in both public and private practice, Dr. Peters worked with people with a variety of neurological injuries, such as stroke. During clinical practice, Dr. Peters became curious with how the brain functions and recovers gait and standing balance after stroke. As such, her research aims to better understand the role of the brain and how it contributes to the motor control of gait and balance.
Jon Lau, MD, PhD
Dr. Jon Lau is an MD and PhD trained neurosurgeon working as a clinician-researcher at Western University. He recently completed a functional and epilepsy neurosurgery fellowship at Emory University working with Robert E. Gross focussed on surgical neuromodulation (deep brain stimulation, closed loop devices, stereotactic laser ablation, robotic surgery) for which he received the Royal College Detweiler traveling scholarship. He previously completed a doctoral degree in biomedical engineering in the lab of Terry M. Peters, where his research was focussed on ultra-high field (>= 7-Tesla; 7T) MRI for image-guided neurosurgery. He has developed methods to quantify the accuracy of 7T and identified small brain structures previously only visible on histology (e.g. the zona incerta and hippocampal subfields). I develop neuroimaging workflows founded on open science principles, including the Anatomical Fiducials (AFIDs) project, which aims to enhance the transparency of reporting of stereotactic coordinates, detect brain misalignment, and teach neuroanatomy. For these projects, he was awarded a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Doctoral scholarship.