People

Stefanie Blain-Moraes, Ph.D., P.Eng

Associate Professor, School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, McGill University

Stefanie Blain-Moraes is a biomedical engineer and the Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Consciousness and Personhood Technologies. Her formal training in engineering and neuroscience have enabled her to contribute to the development of EEG methods at a high international level. She has over 60 journal publications; her research has been credited with over 1700 citations and an h-index of 22 (source: Google Scholar – 08/2022). Her work was recognized with McGill University’s Principal’s Prize for Outstanding Emerging Researcher in 2022. In addition to her multidisciplinary background in biomedical engineering (Ph.D., University of Toronto, Canada) and rehabilitation sciences (University of Michigan), her research interests have been fostered by postdoctoral fellowships in anesthesiology and neuroscience (University of Michigan). Stefanie also has an ARCT in Piano Performance from the Royal Conservatory of Music.

Raphaël Lavoie

Lab manager

Raphaël Lavoie is the Lab Manager and research coordinator at the BIAPT lab. He completed his Master’s degree in Neurosciences at Université de Montréal. His background is in animal physiology and  fundamental neurosciences. He previously worked on multiple subjects, from astrocyte networks and rhythmogenesis, to hypoxia in neonates, sleep, spatial memory and navigation. He has a method-development oriented mind and previously worked with a wide range of techniques such as: patch clamp, whole-body plethysmography, EEG, MRI, and both in vitro and in vivo calcium imaging. He is really happy about his move to clinical research, the human interaction with the clinical population and the impact of the group’s research program. 

Naila Kuhlmann

Postdoctoral fellow

Naila Kuhlmann is a post-doctoral fellow in the BIAPT lab, and an associated researcher with the Center for Circus Arts Research, Innovation and Knowledge Transfer (CRITAC). After completing a PhD in neuroscience at the University of British Columbia, in which she studied the neurobiology of Parkinson’s disease, Naila reoriented herself to explore how the arts can serve as a link between scientific research and the lived experience of illness. She began her postdoc in 2020 by leading Piece of Mind, an arts-based knowledge translation project in which neuroscientists, performing artists, and people affected by neurodegenerative conditions came together to co-create performances on Parkinson’s disease and dementia. Her current participatory research investigates how lived and felt (e.g. embodied) experiences can be conveyed through the combination of arts and immersive technologies. 

Beatrice Pelletier-De Koninck

Ph.D. Candidate

Beatrice completed her Master’s degree in Psychology at the University of Montreal. Her previous work focused on optimization of key parameters of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) to modulate brain activity among healthy participants. This Master’s project was essential for her current PhD project as she will now study the effects of these optimized tACS’ parameters on patients suffering from disorders of consciousness, in the hopes of improving clinical interventions among this population via new therapeutic technologies.

Charlotte Maschke

Ph.D. Candidate

Charlotte completed her Bachelor’s in Psychology in 2019 at the Technical University Dresden, Germany. To investigate cultural and aging-related effects on hippocampal- versus striatal-subserved navigation strategies, she spent one semester as a research visiting student at the National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of Brain and Mind Science. Charlotte will be using high-density EEG and machine learning techniques to investigate predictive factors for long term consequences and recovery of consciousness after a severe brain injury.

Jackie Girgis

Ph.D. Student 

 CareFor the last 10+ years, Jackie has worked in the healthcare industry as a registered nurse (in the hospital) and a project manager (in both the hospital and in industry). Jackie is returning to graduate school to learn how to apply machine learning to the healthcare issues she has been working on patients with both directly and indirectly. In the lab, she will be focusing on the bio-music project and specifically how machine learning can be used to automate classification of emotions for non-communicative children to improve their quality of life, as well as that of their caregivers.

Miriam Han

M.Sc. candidate

Miriam completed her Bachelor’s in Neuroscience in 2021 at McGill University. She joined the BIAPT lab as an undergraduate researcher where she studied dimensionality reduction of high-density EEG data from healthy and brain-injured participants. Building upon this, her Master’s project in the BIAPT Lab will use low-density clinical EEG signals from intensive and critical care units in Canada to investigate neural markers that help predict recovery of consciousness in patients with disorders of consciousness and brain-injury. She is interested in cutting-edge healthcare technologies, neurodiversity in education, and solutions to inequity in healthcare.

Kira Dolhan

M.Sc. candidate

Kira graduated with a combined honors degree in neurobiology and psychology in 2022 at the University of Victoria. Here, she conducted a thesis studying conscious versus subliminal perception, and contributed to several papers reviewing non-neuronal cells in brain disorders. She is interested in consciousness, cognitive computational neuroscience, and neurophilosophy. Thus, in the BIAPT Lab, Kira will use DTI and EEG data to quantify structural and functional connectivity in patients with cognitive motor dissociation. Furthermore, she will be collecting high-density EEG data to study how varying levels of general anesthesia can change functional connectivity and consciousness.

Naomi Askenazi 

M.Sc. candidate

Naomi graduated from McGill University with an honors degree in Cognitive Science. For her thesis, she reviewed the methodologies of collection and analysis in the field of dream research, and experimented with more personalized methods of recording Dreams. Naomi will be continuing her education at McGill University as a master’s student in Experimental Medicine. With the support of the BIAPT lab, Naomi will explore the use of biomusic in a palliative care setting, working with non-communicative individuals and their caregivers to assess and tailor this technology.

Melody Yang

M.Sc. candidate

Melody completed her HBSc in Neuroscience and Computational Cognitive Sciences at the University of Toronto. During the pandemic, she began volunteering in social work for victims of abuse. After finishing her capstone project on machine learning detection of depression from EEG signals in 2021, Melody left the field to continue her work in social services. Throughout this work she found a passion in bringing interventions to at-risk populations in her community, and is looking to pursue developing the biomusic technology with her fellow lab members at BIAPT during her master’s. Outside of school, Melody loves sailing boats and hopes to get to competition level by the end of her studies. Sewing and baking are a few of her other passions. 

Derek Newman

M.Sc. candidate

Derek earned his Bachelor’s degree in Behavioural Neuroscience from Concordia University in 2023, where he focused on multimodal neuroimaging techniques to investigate the functional dynamics of the brain. Derek’s research interests include computational and cognitive neuroscience, machine learning, consciousness studies, and the philosophy of mind. For his Master’s project, Derek will explore fractal properties and critical dynamics of brain networks to develop a diagnostic and prognostic tool for unresponsive patients in coma and individuals with disorders of consciousness. This research will leverage high-density EEG technology to study the dynamics of general anesthesia and disorders of consciousness to understand brain function and improve patient care in critical medical contexts.

Tianyu Zhang

Resident

Tianyu is a neurology resident at the McGill University Health Center who is interested in neuroprognostication of critically ill patients. During her neuroscience research internship with the lab, she will be learning functional connectivity and graph theory analysis techniques in order to correlate high-density EEG data from patient with disorders of consciousness with their long-term clinical outcome. Prior to medicine, she completed an undergraduate degree in neuroscience and philosophy at McGill, where she first developed interests in consciousness, philosophy of mind and medical ethics.

Jiayue Yang

Undergraduate student

I am a current undergraduate student studying Neuroscience at McGill University. I am interested in the field of consciousness and its relation to brain disorders and health related issues. After conducting a research project of articulation diagnosis for neurodegenerative disorders using AI techniques last summer, I became interested in the possibility of applying machine learning techniques in neuroscience research to assist in practical diagnosis and treatment. I am excited to be working on a project discovering the electrophysiological signature of pediatric concussion with the use of machine learning at the BIAPT Lab this year.

Nora Gibson

Intern

Gibson began her professional dance career at 13, and earned a BFA in Dance from Tisch, NYU. As the choreographer of Nora Gibson Contemporary Ballet, she was a resident artist in the US and abroad, including the Choreographers on Campus Residency, through the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2014), Kaatsbaan (2017), and The Dance Visions Residency (2018). She revolutionized her practice in 2019 by incorporating multimedia and technology. Since then, her work was presented by the Fels Planetarium at the Franklin Institute (PHL), Ars Electronica’s Online Global Gallery, Contemporary & Digital Art Fair(“CADAF”) (NYC), Lightbox (NYC), and Urban Screens Production (AUS). Her expanded practice includes video installation, dome performance, and interactive/immersive installations, through which she expresses her interest and questions about body/mind, and experience of self/other. During Gibson’s internship at the BIAPT Lab, she will be researching physiological markers of interpersonal synchrony in relation to dance experiences. She is currently pursuing her Masters Degree at Concordia University in Intermedia, and is a student-researcher at Hexagram Network.