People

Nikhil Chaudhari

Nikhil is a doctoral student in biomedical engineering at USC. He has worked on the segmentation of CT scans and on the automatic labeling of CMBs from susceptibility weighted imaging in mTBI patients. He completed his undergraduate majoring in computer science and engineering at VIT University in India, and an MS in computer science at USC.

Nahian Chowdhury

Nahian is a doctoral student in neuroscience with a background in neuroscience and computer science. He is interested in the structural neuroimaging of traumatic brain injury in older adults, in the longitudinal analysis of brain circuitry using diffusion tensor imaging, as well as in machine learning.

Phoebe Imms

Phoebe is a postdoctoral scholar whose focus is the neural and cognitive outcomes of traumatic brain injury and Alzheimer’s disease. She obtained her Ph.D. in neuropsychology from the Australian Catholic University, and her BScHons from the University of Melbourne. 

Owen Maisel Vega Huerta

Owen is a neuroscience Ph.D. student at USC researching the divergence of localized brain aging in individuals with neuropsychiatric disorders, such as anxiety and depression, and how this may impact their quality of life. Through his work, he hopes to highlight the importance of research in mental health.

Sam Anderson

Sam is a project assistant whose research centers around the development of novel graph neural network architectures for the analysis of localized, accelerated cortical aging in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. He received his bachelor’s degree in biology from Wesleyan University, and in his free time enjoys swimming and reading philosophy.

Nicholas Kim

Nicholas is a USC Trustee Scholar and Viterbi Fellow studying biomedical engineering. His research explores the genetic determinants of brain aging and neurodegeneration using T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging and genome-wide association studies.

Tamara Jafar

Tamara is a neuroscience Ph.D. student at USC researching the intersection of genomics and neuroimaging to study longevity and Alzheimer’s disease. She earned her undergraduate degree in integrative biology and public health from UC Berkeley before researching epilepsy using multimodal neuroimaging at Yale’s Clinical Neuroscience Neuroanalytics Lab. She later transitioned to the private sector, where she worked with spatial epigenomics.

Fangyun (Cecilia) Liu

Fangyun (Cecilia) is a Ph.D. student in the computational biology and bioinformatics program at USC interested in modeling the calcification of the carotid artery, especially in pre-industrial populations such as the Tsimané. Her research aims to elucidate the mechanisms driving plaque development and its implications.

Haoqing (Terese) Wang

Haoqing (Terese) is a Ph.D. student in biomedical engineering at USC, interested in interpretable deep learning for neuroimaging. Her research focuses on identifying patterns of accelerated aging in individuals with mild traumatic brain injury. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in computational science from Northeastern University.

Risha Surana

Risha is an undergraduate researcher and Trustee Scholar with a background in emergency medicine. Her research focuses on the role of demyelination in health and disease.

Jaron Kawamura

Jaron is an undergraduate student and Presidential Scholar studying biomedical engineering. He is interested in the use of interpretable methods to visualize the effects of modifiable lifestyle factors on accelerated cortical aging.

Kevin Guo

Kevin is an undergraduate student studying computer science with an interest in applying ethical machine learning techniques to biomedicine and neuroscience. His research focuses on interpretable deep learning in the context of brain aging and Alzheimer’s disease.

Xiao Xu

Xiao is a doctoral student in biomedical engineering at USC who studies neurovascular calcification as a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. She received her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC).

Jorge Solis-Galvan

Jorge is a Fullbright Scholar, USC Viterbi Dean’s Scholarship recipient, and Ph.D. student in biomedical engineering at USC. He earned his bachelor’s in software engineering from the Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, and is interested in developing the field of healthcare through software.

• Anar Amgalan
• Ammar Dharani
• Benjamin Hacker
• Roy Massett
• Dylan Overby
• Chur Tam
• Jessica Zhu
• Maria Calvillo
• Michelle Y. Ha
• Di Fan
• Elliot Jacobs
• Jun H. Kim
• Sean Lee
• Hyung Jun (Josh) Lee
• Rachel Lin
• Alexander Maher
• Sean Mahoney
• Kenneth Rostowsky
• Shania H. Wang
• Layal Wehbe