people.html

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  <title>People – NerDS Lab</title>
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<header>
  <div class="logo-title">
    <img src="images/logo_outline.png" alt="nerds lab logo">
    <h1>nerds_lab</h1>
  </div>
  <nav>
    <a href="index.html">Home</a>
    <a href="about.html">About</a>
    <a href="people.html">People</a>
    <a href="publications.html">Publications</a>
    <a href="nerdslabcode.html">Code</a>
    <a href="contact.html">Contact</a>
  </nav>
</header>

<main>
  <h2>People</h2>

  <!-- Main PI -->
  <h3>Principal Investigator</h3>
<div class="person">
          <img src="images/people/eva.png" alt="Eva Dyer">
          <div class="person-info">
            <h3>Eva Dyer</h3>
            <p>Eva Dyer (she/they) is the Rachleff Family Associate Professor in the Departments of <a href="https://be.seas.upenn.edu/" target="_blank">Bioengineering</a> and <a href="https://www.cis.upenn.edu/" target="_blank">Computer &amp; Information Science</a> at the University of Pennsylvania. Their research aims to build machine learning systems that can help us better understand the brain, uncover principles of natural intelligence, and design new forms of brain-inspired AI.</p>    <p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Sb_jcHcAAAAJ&hl=en">Google Scholar</a></p>
          </div>
        </div>   

<details style="margin-top: 1.2em;">
  <summary style="cursor: pointer; font-weight: 600; font-size: 1.05em;">
    Extended Bio 
  </summary>

  <div style="margin-top: 1em;">

  <p>
    Dr. Dyer's work has been recognized through major national and international awards in machine learning and neuroscience. Dr. Dyer is currently a <strong>CIFAR Fellow</strong> in the <em>Learning in Machines & Brains</em> program at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (2025–2030), and previously received the <strong>CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar Award</strong> (2022). They are also the recipient of the <strong>NSF CAREER Award</strong> (2022), the <strong>McKnight Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Award</strong> (2020), the <strong>Sloan Fellowship in Neuroscience</strong> (2019), and the <strong>NSF CRII Award</strong> (2018). Earlier honors include being named a <strong>Next Generation Leader</strong> by the Allen Institute for Brain Science and receiving both the <strong>NSF Graduate Research Fellowship</strong> and a <strong>National Library of Medicine Fellowship in Computational Biology and Medicine</strong>.
  </p>

  <p>
    Prior to joining Penn, Dr. Dyer was faculty at Georgia Tech and Emory University. They received all degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering and have worked extensively at the intersection of machine learning, neuroscience, and applied mathematics. Their research aims to uncover principles of natural intelligence that can guide the development of more general, adaptive, and biologically grounded AI systems.
  </p>
  </div>
</details>

</div>
  <!-- Postdocs -->
  <h3>Postdocs</h3>
  <div class="person">
    <img src="images/people/sergey1.jpg" alt="Sergey Shuvaev">
    <div class="person-info">
      <h3>Sergey Shuvaev</h3>
      <p>Joint postdoc with the NerDS and Pesaran labs. Sergey’s research focuses on biologically informed models of decision-making, integrating AI with neuroscience. He holds degrees from MIPT and has worked at Cold Spring Harbor Lab.</p>
      <p><a href="https://shuvaev.me/" target="_blank">Personal Site</a></p>
    </div>
  </div>

  <!-- PhD Students -->
  <h3>PhD Students</h3>
          <div class="person">
          <img src="images/people/alex.jpg" alt="Alexandre Andre">
          <div class="person-info">
            <h3>Alexandre Andre</h3>
            <p>Alexandre Andre is a first-year PhD student in Computer & Information Science at UPenn. He graduated with a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Technology of Compiègne.</p>
            <p><a href="https://alexandreandr.github.io/profile//">Personal Site</a></p>
          </div>
        </div> 
  
  <div class="person">
          <img src="images/people/vinam.png" alt="Vinam Arora">
          <div class="person-info">
            <h3>Vinam Arora</h3>
            <p>Vinam Arora is a third-year PhD student in Computer & Information Science at UPenn. He completed his undergraduate studies in Electronics at the Indian Institution of Technology (IIT) in Roorkee and worked as a Design Engineer at Texas Instruments.</p>
            <p><a href="https://www.vinam.dev/">Personal Site</a></p>
          </div>
        </div>
        
        <div class="person">
          <img src="images/people/zihao.jpg" alt="Zihao Chen">
          <div class="person-info">
            <h3>Zihao Chen</h3>
            <p>Zihao Chen is a third year PhD student in Computer & Information Science at UPenn. He received his bachelor’s degree in Biology from Wuhan University and Master of Engineering in Biomedical Engineering from Fudan University in 2023.</p>
            <p><a href="https://www.zihaoiz.com/">Personal Site</a></p>
          </div>
        </div>
        
          <div class="person">
          <img src="images/people/ian.jpg" alt="Ian Knight">
          <div class="person-info">
            <h3>Ian Knight</h3>
            <p>Ian Knight is first-year PhD student in the Computer & Information Science at UPenn. He received his bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology.</p>
            <p><a href="https://www.ianjknight.com/">Personal Site</a></p>
          </div>
        </div>      
  
  <div class="person">
          <img src="images/people/div.jpeg" alt="Divyansha Lachi">
          <div class="person-info">
            <h3>Divyansha Lachi</h3>
            <p>Divyansha is a third year Ph.D. student in Computer & Information Science at UPenn. She received her B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Silchar, India.</p>
            <p><a href="https://divyansha1115.github.io/">Personal Site</a></p>
          </div>
        </div>

    <div class="person">
          <img src="images/people/wenrui.jpg" alt="Wenrui Ma">
          <div class="person-info">
            <h3>Wenrui Ma</h3>
            <p>Wenrui Ma is currently a first-year PhD student in Computer & Information Science at UPenn. She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Math from Hunan University in Changsha.</p>
            <p><a href="https://wma79.github.io/">Personal Site</a></p>
          </div>
        </div>
        
        <div class="person">
          <img src="images/people/shiva1.jpg" alt="Shivashriganesh Mahato">
          <div class="person-info">
            <h3>Shivashriganesh Mahato</h3>
            <p>Shivashriganesh Mahato is a second-year PhD student in Computer & Information Science at UPenn. He received his BS in Applied Mathematics and MS in Computer Science from Texas A&M University.</p>
            <p><a href="https://shivashriganeshmahato.github.io/portfolio/">Personal Site</a></p>
          </div>
        </div>
        
        <div class="person">
          <img src="images/people/jingyun.jpg" alt="Jingyun Xiao">
          <div class="person-info">
            <h3>Jingyun Xiao</h3>
            <p>Jingyun is a PhD student in Computer & Information Science at UPenn. He received his bachelor’s degree in CS from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and MS in Computer Science from Georgia Tech in 2023.</p>
     </div>
        </div>
  
  <!-- Masters Students -->
  <h3>Masters Students</h3>

  <div class="person">
    <img src="images/people/stephen.jpg" alt="Stephen Kwak">
    <div class="person-info">
      <h3>Stephen Kwak</h3>
      <p>Stephen Kwak is a Master's student at UPenn. He received his BS in Computer Science and Math from Pomona College.</p>
    </div>
  </div>

  <div class="person">
    <img src="images/people/keshav.png" alt="Keshav Balaji">
    <div class="person-info">
      <h3>Keshav Balaji</h3>
      <p>Keshav Balaji is a first-year Master's student in Computer & Information Science at UPenn. He received his BS in Computer Science from UW Madison.</p>
    </div>
  </div>

  <!-- Research Staff -->
  <h3>Research Staff</h3>

  <div class="person">
    <img src="images/people/jacob.jpg" alt="Jacob Poschl">
    <div class="person-info">
      <h3>Jacob Poschl</h3>
      <p>Jacob Poschl is a member of the research staff in the NerDS Lab. He received his BS in Computer Science from UC Santa Cruz in 2026.</p>
    </div>
  </div>

  
 <!-- Alumni -->
<h3>Alumni</h3>

<!-- PhD Students -->
<h4>PhD Students</h4>
<ul style="padding-left: 28px; line-height: 1.7;">

  <li style="margin-bottom: 18px;">
    <strong><a href="https://www.mehai.dev/" target="_blank">Mehdi Azabou</a></strong><br>
    Ph.D. Student (2020–2024)<br>
    Outstanding Graduate Student in ECE (2024), Spotlight @ NeurIPS<br>
    Thesis: <em>Building a Foundation Model for Neuroscience</em><br>
    Postdoc with Liam Paninski and Blake Richards @ Columbia University / Mila<br>
    Now CTO at Constellation
  </li>

  <li style="margin-bottom: 18px;">
    <strong><a href="https://ranliu98.github.io/" target="_blank">Ran Liu</a></strong><br>
    Ph.D. Student (2019–2024)<br>
    Rising Star in EECS (2023), CSIP Research Award (2023), Oral @ NeurIPS<br>
    Thesis: <em>Generalizable and Explainable Methods for Learning from Physiological Data and Beyond</em><br>
    Now at Apple
  </li>

  <li style="margin-bottom: 18px;">
    <strong><a href="https://www.chihenglin.com/" target="_blank">Chi-Heng Lin</a></strong><br>
    Ph.D. Student (2018–2022)<br>
    TRIAD Research Fellowship (2020)<br>
    Thesis: <em>Understanding Data Manipulation and How to Leverage it to Improve Generalization</em><br>
    Samsung Research → Meta
  </li>

</ul>

<!-- Masters Students -->
<h4>MS Students</h4>
<ul style="padding-left: 28px; line-height: 1.6;">

  <li><strong>Venky Ganesh</strong>, M.S. (2022–2024) → NVIDIA</li>
  <li><strong>Keerthan Ramnath</strong>, M.S. (2022–2024) → Apple</li>
  <li><strong>Amrit Khera</strong>, M.S. (2023–2024) → OpenAI</li>
  <li><strong>Aishwarya Balwani</strong>, M.S. (2018–2021) → Ph.D. in ECE @ Georgia Tech</li>
  <li><strong>Kyle Milligan</strong>, M.S. (2018–2020) → Northrop Grumman</li>
  <li><strong>TJ LaGrow</strong>, M.S. (2017–2019) – NSF GRFP Honorable Mention → Ph.D. in ECE @ Georgia Tech</li>

</ul>

<!-- Undergraduate Students -->
<h4>Undergraduate Students</h4>
<ul style="padding-left: 28px; line-height: 1.6;">

  <li><strong>Michael Mendelson</strong>, Undergraduate Researcher (2020–2024) – President’s Undergraduate Research Award (2022, 2023) → Ph.D. @ Columbia</li>

  <li><strong>Matthew Jin</strong>, Undergraduate Researcher (2022–2023) → Master’s @ Stanford</li>

  <li><strong>Carolina Urzay</strong>, Undergraduate Researcher (2021–2022) → Master’s @ TU Delft</li>

  <li><strong>Joy M. Jackson</strong>, Undergraduate Researcher (2021–2022) – NSF GRFP (2023), REU SURE (2021), Best Research in Biomedical Category → Ph.D. @ Georgia Tech with Alex Abramson</li>

  <li><strong>Zijing Wu</strong>, Undergraduate Researcher (2020–2021) → Anqi Wu’s Lab @ Georgia Tech, now Ph.D. @ McGill</li>

  <li><strong>Amaal Abdi</strong>, High School Intern (2020–2021) → Undergraduate @ Wharton, University of Pennsylvania</li>

  <li><strong>Max Dabagia</strong>, Undergraduate Researcher (2018–2020) – NSF GRFP (2020), PURA (2019) → Ph.D. @ Georgia Tech with Santosh Vempala, now Postdoc with Christos Papadimitriou @ Columbia</li>

  <li><strong>Alexis Webber</strong>, Undergraduate Researcher (2019) – Charles Hancock Award for Neuroengineering Research → Alpha Omega</li>

  <li><strong>Joseph Miano</strong>, Undergraduate Researcher (2018–2020) – PURA (2019) → M.S. in CS, JPMorgan Chase</li>

</ul>
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