Team

Sepideh Sadaghiani is Helen Corley Petit Associate Professor of Psychology (Cognitive Neuroscience program area) and by courtesy of Bioengineering, and faculty of the Neuroscience Graduate Program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She directs the CONNECTlab at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology where she is full-time faculty. Sadaghiani received a Ph.D. in Neural and Behavioral Sciences from the Max Planck Graduate School and postdoctoral training at Berkeley and Stanford. She investigates the role of neural connectivity and spontaneous brain activity in cognitive control and behavior through a multi-modal lens. Sadaghiani serves as handling editor at NeuroImage. She has been recognized as Lincoln Excellence for Assistant Professors (LEAP) Scholar of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) and of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).

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CV

Staff

Lab Manager

Graduate Students

Max Egan received his B.A. in Psychology from the University of California at Berkeley. He has been a full-time research coordinator at Shaw/Carmichael lab at Stanford since 2013. Max joins the lab as a Ph.D. student during fall 2016.

Parham Mostame joined the lab on Fall 2018 as a Ph.D. student in the cognitive neuroscience area of the psychology program. He has received his B.Sc. degree at the University of Tehran in electrical engineering in control division. He completed his M.Sc. degree at the same university in electrical engineering in the biomedical engineering division. During his M.Sc., He worked with ECoG signals acquired from epileptic patients to figure out the dynamics of high gamma functional connectivity during various linguistic tasks such as verb generation and word recognition.

Suhnyoung Jun received her M.A. in psychology from Yonsei University and worked as a senior researcher at Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory and Decision-making Lab and Integrative Neurocognitive Functional Imaging Center. Her research interest mainly concerns the neural mechanisms associated with disorders that may disturb the processing of high-level cognition and emotion and integration of a variety of neural aspects and related affective-cognitive functions, by adopting a wide range of assessment tools and methodological strategies. Suhnyoung joined the lab in fall 2019. She is currently working on the data analysis of Zika’s project.

Chris Perriello was born and raised in Boston, MA, completing a BS in Clinical Psychology at Tufts University before becoming involved in research studies at MGH and McLean Hospital. Currently, Chris is a second year in the clinical psychology program and is primarily interested in studying the neural mechanisms of transdiagnostic repetitive negative thinking (RNT) in anxious/depressed populations and the effects of RNT on executive functioning.

Martín Irani obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from Universidad de Chile. Before joining the lab in 2021, he worked as a technical associate in the Interdisciplinary Center of Neuroscience at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Martín is interested in the dynamic organization of brain functional networks that underlie cognitive control processes.

Sarah Olshan completed her B.S. degree at the University of Florida in psychology with behavioral and cognitive neuroscience. Her main interests include a better understanding of how emotion is represented in the brain as well as how emotion and cognition interact using various brain imaging techniques (fMRI, EEG). In addition to better understanding these processes in healthy adults, she is interested in how emotional wellbeing can be fostered particularly for those with affective conditions such as anxiety and depression.

Aiman Naqvi is a freshman majoring in Brain and Cognitive Science with a minor in Computer Science. He joined the lab in the Spring of 2022 and will be assisting Lab Manager with EEG procedures in an ongoing concurrent EEG-fMRI study.

Angelica Castaneda is a senior majoring in psychology. She joined the lab in the Summer of 2022 and is assisting with the EEG procedure for the concurrent EEG-fMRI study.

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Alumni

Yuetian (Vivian) Li is a master’s student in the Psychological Science program. Before joining the lab, she received a B.A. in Psychology and Integrative Biology Honor from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is interested in combining multiple levels of analysis including brain activity, behavioral task performances, and self-report measures to unravel the cognitive and neural correlates of emotion regulation relevant to self-injury and depression. She is currently working on the data analysis of the depression project that investigates the attentional and processing bias of people with previous depressive episodes when they interpret ambiguous emotional and perceptual stimuli.

Sunaina Karanth received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a concentration in Behavioral Neuroscience. She joined the CONNECT lab fall of 2017 and assisted graduate student Max Egan on an EEG/fMRI project.

Sophia Giakas received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a concentration in Cognitive Neuroscience and has in minor in Sociology. Her involvement includes maintaining the daily operation of the lab, coordinating research projects, as well as data acquisition and analysis for a concurrent EEG-fMRI study.

Brad Yang received his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. His involvement in the lab included helping with the logistics and data collection. Currently, he is a Master’s student working in the Human Memory and Cognition Lab at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Jonathan Wirsich worked at the CONNECTlab from winter 2016 to 2018. He holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Aix-Marseille University and a M.Sc. in Computer Science from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. His research is focused on information integration and fusion of multimodal imaging such as concurrent EEG-fMRI and diffusion MRI to better understand the dynamic and static properties of whole-brain networks in healthy and clinical populations (epilepsy, stroke). He is now working as maître-assistant (senior researcher) at the University of Geneva, pushing the limits of concurrent EEG-fMRI at 7T.

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Research Gate

Richard O. Bidó-Medina received his ‘Doctor of Medicine’ (M.D.) degree from Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He joined the Neuroscience Program of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Fall 2014, when he obtained the Fulbright Scholarship of the USA Department of State. His research interests are related to understanding the neural correlates of neurological and psychiatric disorders by utilizing neuroimaging techniques in order to improve their diagnosis and treatment. He is now working as a psychiatric resident at Harvard-MGH.

Ezra Winter-Nelson received his Bachelor’s degree in Molecular Cellular Biology with a minor in Computer Science. His involvement in the lab included data acquisition and analysis. Currently, he is a Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at Dallas studying Cognition and Neuroscience.

Edwin Guzman received his Bachelor’s degree in Clinical Psychology. His involvement in the lab included clinical assessment, SCID-5 administration, and website management. His clinical assessment and SCID-5 involvement entail clinical outcome analysis and evaluation. Edwin’s website management involves HTML editing to update website content.

Taaha Adamji is a senior majoring in Bioengineering with a minor in Chemistry on the pre-med track. He joined the lab in the Spring of 2021 and is assisting graduate student Parham Mostame in an ongoing EEG study.

Lija Hoffman received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology on the pre-med track. She is interested in cognitive neuroscience, particularly the neural mechanisms of emotional regulation. Her involvement in the lab included aiding in EEG procedure. Currently, she is working in the NEAR lab at Northwestern University.

Coleen Long received her Bachelor’s degree in Clinical Psychology most interested in further understanding psychiatric disorders and their various treatments. Her involvement in the lab included coordinating research logistics for a clinical study, collecting clinical data, and assisting with EEG procedures. Currently, she is a UX Researcher at Bold Insight.

Brian McFarlin received his Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a concentration in Cognitive Neuroscience. His responsibilities in the lab consisted of EEG administration and behavioral data analysis. Currently, he is an MHRIR candidate at the School of Labor and Employment Relations at UIUC.

Becca McWilliams has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a neuroscience emphasis. She joined the CONNECT lab in Fall 2017 and assisted Max Egan with EEG/fMRI procedure. Currently, she is working as an associate clinical research coordinator at Rush University Medical Center.

While at UIUC, Jessica Diaz studied Psychology with a concentration in Behavioral Neuroscience. She is interested in psychiatric disorders, and the clinical applications of research on the treatment of these disorders. Jessica was involved in coordinating research logistics for a clinical study, as well as assistance with EEG and fMRI procedures.

Jorge Maldonado is a student from Carolina, Puerto Rico in the Neuroscience Ph.D. program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Jorge received his B.S. in Biotechnology from Universidad del Este. His interests are to comprehend neurological and psychiatric disorders through the physical and functional brain states that characterize these disorders. He is dedicated to employing non-invasive techniques such as MRI to perform connectivity and morphometric analysis.

Research Assistant

While at UIUC, Laura Pritschet studied Psychology with a particular focus in Behavioral Neuroscience. She is interested in traumatic brain injury research and the impact damaged areas have on functions of executive control. After leaving our lab, Laura joined the graduate program at the University of California, Santa Barbara.