Principal Investigator
Behtash Babadi, PhD
Associate Professor
Associate Chair for Graduate Studies and Research
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
Institute for Systems Research
Affiliate Faculty
Program in Neuroscience & Cognitive Science
Applied Mathematics & Statistics, and Scientific Computation Program
University of Maryland, College Park
Behtash Babadi received the Ph.D. and M.Sc. degrees in Engineering Sciences from Harvard University in 2011 and 2008, respectively, and the B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran in 2006. From 2011 to 2014, he was a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as well as at the Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. He received an NSF CAREER Award in 2016 and the UMD’s E. Robert Kent Outstanding Teaching Award for Junior Faculty in 2019.
Current Members
Sahar Khosravi
Sahar is currently a Ph.D. student in Electrical Engineering at the University of Maryland, working under the supervision of Prof. Behtash Babadi. Sahar completed her Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Tehran. Her research focuses on the intersection of computational neuroscience, signal processing, and mathematical modeling of brain signals. she specializes in Machine learning, statistical analysis, causal inference, and predictive modeling.
Ruwanthi Abeysekara
Ruwanthi is a third-year Ph.D. student in Electrical Engineering at the University of Maryland, working under the supervision of Prof. Behtash Babadi. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka. Ruwanthi joined the lab in the summer of 2021, and her research focuses on the intersection of computational neuroscience, signal processing, machine learning, and the mathematical modeling of brain signals.
Pardis Hajiseyedrazi
Pardis joined the NMDA lab in the Fall of 2021 as a graduate research assistant and Ph.D. student. She completed her Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from the Sharif University of Technology, with a minor in Biomedical Engineering. Her research focuses on utilizing probabilistic tools to construct models that can accurately describe neural pathways and connections in the auditory cortex.
Lahiru Wijerathna
Lahiru is a Ph.D. student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Maryland – College Park. He received his B.Sc. with Hons. in Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering from the University of Moratuwa – Sri Lanka in 2021. Lahiru joined the NMDA lab in Fall 2023 and his research mainly focuses on the intersection of machine learning, optimization and adaptive control systems.
Collaborators
The Simon Group
PI: Jonathan Z. Simon, PhD (UMD)
Neural Systems Laboratory
PI: Shihab A. Shamma, PhD (UMD)
The Kanold Laboratory
PI: Patrick O. Kanold, PhD (Johns Hopkins University)
Marsh Lab
PI: Elisabeth B. Marsh, MD (Johns Hopkins University)
Francis Lab
PI: Nikolas A. Francis, PhD (UMD)
Maryland Power Electronics Laboratory
PI: Alireza Khaligh, PhD (UMD)
Alumni
Shoutik Mukherjee
PhD (2023; co-advised with Shihab A. Shamma)
Behrad Soleimani
PhD (2023; posthumous honoris causa)
Anuththara Rupasinghe
PhD (2022); now: Post-doctoral scholar at Princeton University
Proloy Das
PhD (2020); now: Post-doctoral scholar at Stanford University
Sina Miran
PhD (2019); now: Senior Machine Learning Scientist at Apple
Alireza Sheikhattar
PhD (2018); now: Data Scientist at Apple
Abbas Kazemipour
PhD (2017; co-advised with Min Wu); now: Applied Scientist at Amazon
Sahar Akram
Post-doctoral scholar (2015-2016); now: Manager, Research Data Science at Meta