List of awardees

2025-2026 Competition
Masters excellence scholarships
Aya Azbane, Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal

Unfolding Mental Spaces Onto a Plane

Supervisors: Frédéric Gosselin & Ian Charest

Emmanuelle Coutu-Nadeau, Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal

Neural Responses to ASMR: EEG Analysis and Machine Learning Predictions in Young Adults

Supervisors: Sarah Lippé & Karim Jerbi

Thomas Dagonneau, Génie biomédical, Polytechnique Montréal

Modèle de fondation 3D pour l’imagerie médicale basé sur les représentations neuronales implicites

Supervisors: Julien Cohen-Adad & Benjamin De Leener

Hugo Delhaye, Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal

Mesures automatisées de la curiosité chez les humains et des agents artificiels dans Super Mario Bros à l'aide de VideoLLaMa2.

Supervisors: Pierre Bellec & Audrey Durand

Laurence Lessard, Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal

Identifying the spatiotemporal course of mental imagery by fusing EEG and fMRI

Supervisors: Vincent Taschereau-Dumouchel & Ian Charest

Yorguin José Mantilla Ramos, Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle (DIRO), Université de Montréal

Leveraging Supervised and Unsupervised Machine Learning to Explore Complexity and Brain Criticality in Refractory Epilepsy

Supervisors: Karim Jerbi & Dang Khoa Nguyen

Anaïs Rourre, Département de neurosciences, Université de Montréal

Quand la cognition sociale persiste : identifier la capacité de conscience à partir d'enregistrements multi-cérébraux chez des individus non-répondants.

Supervisors: Catherine Duclos & Guillaume Dumas

Hee-Woon Ryoo, Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle (DIRO), Université de Montréal

A unifying framework for the analysis of multimodal neural data

Supervisors: Guillaume Lajoie & Matthew Perich

Vedant Kandarpbhai Shah, Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle (DIRO), Université de Montréal

Leveraging Metacognition in LLMs for Training and Evaluating LLMs

Supervisors: Yoshua Bengio & Guillaume Lajoie

Kamylle Thériault, Département de médecine moléculaire, Université Laval

Characterisation of the Structure and Dynamics of Postsynaptic Receptors in Age-Related Cognitive Decline

Supervisors: Flavie Lavoie-Cardinal & Yves De Koninck

Charlotte Volk, Department of Computer Science, McGill University

Identifying dynamical motifs of in-context learning during simulated brain-computer interface tasks

Supervisors: Blake Richards & Shahab Bakhtiari

Doctoral excellence scholarships

Hamza Abdelhedi, Département de pharmacologie et physiologie, Université de Montréal

Temporal dynamics of decision-making in biological and artificial intelligent systems

Supervisors: Karim Jerbi & Paul Cisek

Pierre-Louis Benveniste, Génie Biomédical, Polytechnique Montréal

Multi-domain automatic segmentation of spinal multiple sclerosis lesions

Supervisors: Julien Cohen-Adad & Herve Lombaert

Cornelius Crijnen, Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal

Cross-Species Analysis of Visual Systems: Understanding Visual System Development via Species-Specific Movements

Supervisors: Shahab Bakhtiari & Blake Richards

(Scholarship declined by the awardee )

Aleksei Efremov, Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University

NeuroAI Model of Hippocampal-Striatal Interaction During Spatial Navigation

Supervisors: Adrien Peyrache & Blake Richards

Hafez Ghaemi, Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle (DIRO), Université de Montréal

Autoregressive Predictive Learning of Invariant-Equivariant World Models

Supervisors: Eilif Muller & Shahab Bakhtiari

Inés Gonzalez Pepe, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Université Concordia

Training CNNs with Numerical Uncertainty

Supervisors: Tristan Glatard & Pierre Bellec

Buxin Liao, Department of Physiology, McGill University

Experimentally constrained computational modeling of goal-directed gaze behavior

Supervisors: Suresh Krishna & Audrey Durand

Shawn Manuel, Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal

Modéliser l'expérience subjective dans le cerveau humain

Supervisors: Vincent Taschereau-Dumouchel & Frédéric Gosselin

Derek Newman, Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University

Disentangling Complexity and Entropy to Assess States of Consciousness Under Anesthesia Using the Causal Plane

Supervisors: Stefanie Blain-Moraes & Karim Jerbi

Marie-Eve Picard, Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal

Intégration de signaux psychophysiologiques pour l’optimisation de modèles neurocomportementaux individuels de la performance à des jeux vidéo

Supervisors: Pierre Rainville & Pierre Bellec

Motahareh Pourrahimi, Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University

Predicting Primates' Visual Search Behavior and Neural Responses Using a Task-driven Artificial Neural Network Model of Visual Search

Supervisors: Pouya Bashivan & Irina Rish

Bakian Dogaheh Shahla, Department of Physics, Université Concordia

Whole-night EEG-fNIRS as a novel tool for investigating sleep physiology and its relationship with memory consolidation

Supervisors: Christophe Grova & Jean-Marc Lina

Yuan Song, Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal

Is Your Cognition At Risk? Identifying Clusters of Progression Patterns in Parkinson’s Disease and their Association with Cognitive Decline

Supervisors: Oury Monchi & Jean-Baptiste Poline

Meriam Zid, Département de neurosciences, Université de Montréal

Désorganisation des réseaux neuronaux: une perspective dynamique sur l’apprentissage.

Supervisors: Becket Ebitz & Matthew Perich

Postdoctoral research funding

Yassine El Ouahidi, Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal

Towards multi-modal foundation models for neuroscience

Supervisors: Karim Jerbi & Pierre Bellec

Kendra Oudyk, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University

It’s all in the details: Fine-tuning a large language model to extract cognitive entities/tasks for automated fMRI meta-analyses

Supervisors: Jean-Baptiste Poline & Karim Jerbi

Roman Pogodin, Montreal Neuroscience Institute, McGill University

Developing a deep learning-based theoretical framework to guide discovery of neural plasticity rules in neuroscientific experiments

Supervisors: Blake Richards & Guillaume Lajoie

(Funding declined by the awardee )

Ryan Vogt, Département de neurosciences, Université de Montréal

Evolution of Dynamical Structures of Neuronal Activity Across Premotor and Primary Motor Cortices in Non-Human Primates Following Lesion Emergence

Supervisors: Numa Dancause & Guillaume Lajoie

2024-2025 Competition
Masters excellence scholarships

Reza Bayat, Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle (DIRO), Université de Montréal

Enhancing Generalization and Preventing Memorization through Brain-Inspired Dynamic Neuron Localization and Adjustment in Deep Neural Networks

Supervisors: Irina Rish & Bashivan Bashivan

Yohaï-Eliel Berreby, Department of Physiology, School of Biomedical Sciences, McGill University

Auditory subcortical processing is extensive – what is it for, and how do we leverage it?

Supervisors: Suresh Krishna & Bakhtiari Bakhtiari

Vincent Chamberland, Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal

La neuromodulation guidée par l’IA dans les interactions sociales humain-avatar

Supervisors: Guillaume Dumas & Jerbi Jerbi

Lucas Gomez, Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University

Scaling multi-task deep neural networks to model the human prefrontal cortex

Supervisors: Pouya Bashivan & Bellec Bellec

Anirudh Gururaj Jamkhandi, Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle (DIRO), Université de Montréal

Probing compositional principles underlying flexible behavior in biological and artificial neural networks

Supervisors: Matthew G. Perich & Lajoie Lajoie

Koraly Lessard, Département d'informatique et de génie logiciel, Université Laval

Apprentissage auto-supervisé pour la caractérisation de la réorganisation synaptique dans des modèles animaux de la neurodégénération

Supervisors: Flavie Lavoie-Cardinal & Gagné Gagné

Shawn Manuel, Département de psychiatrie et d'addictologie, Université de Montréal

Mapping Inter-Individual Differences in Subjective Experience Using the Latent Space Embedding of Multimodal Neural Networks

Supervisors: Vincent Taschereau-Dumouchel & Gosselin Gosselin

Doctoral excellence scholarships

Frédéric, Beaupré, Département de biochimie, microbiologie et bio-informatique, Université Laval

Detection of Synaptic Anomalies in Neurodegeneration Using Deep Learning and STED Microscopy

Supervisors: Christian Gagné & Lavoie-Cardinal Flavie

Sungjae, Cho, Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle (DIRO), Université de Montréal

A model of neocortical learning by prediction mismatch

Supervisors: Eilif Muller & Richards Blake

Maxime, Daigle, Department of Physiology, McGill University

Modeling the neural computations underlying the distributed hippocampal representations

Supervisors: Pouya Bashivan & Peyrache Adrien

Aniket, Didolkar, Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle (DIRO), Université de Montréal

General Purpose Object-Centric Vision Models

Supervisors: Yoshua Bengio & Lajoie Guillaume

Frans, Irgolitsch, Genie Biomedical, Polytechnique Montréal

A Computational Approach to Quantifying Changes in the Neurovascular Unit With Hypoxic Insult

Supervisors: Frederic Lesage & Lefebvre Joël

Sarthak, Mittal, Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle (DIRO), Université de Montréal

Amortized Bayesian Posterior Inference

Supervisors: Guillaume Lajoie & Bengio Yoshua

Nathan, Molinier, Genie Biomedical, Polytechnique Montréal

A generalizable framework for the automatic detection of spinal pathologies on MRI

Supervisors: Julien Cohen-Adad & Stikov Nikola

Timothy, Nest, Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle (DIRO), Université de Montréal

Extending Deep Equilibrium Prop: A bioplausible framework for general artificial learning

Supervisors: Irina Rish & Muller Eilif

Jordan, O'Byrne, Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal

Unifying criticalities: Exploring the spin glass as a model of cognitive and computational diversity in brains and machines

Supervisors: Karim Jerbi & Dumas Guillaume

Soraya, Rahimi, Département de neurosciences, Université de Montréal

Dynamic connectivity in the cortical motor network while monkeys reach and grasp

Supervisors: Numa Dancause & Perich Matthew

Rishabh, Singhal, Département de neurosciences, Université de Montréal

Neural bases of exploration and exploitation

Supervisors: Becket Ebitz & Perich Matthew

Mashbayar, Tugsbayar, Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University

Brain-like connections for visual processing

Supervisors: Blake Richards & Muller Eilif

Younes, Valibeigi, Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University

Influence of AI Synthesized Stimulus on the Specificity of Visual Perceptual Learning

Supervisors: Christopher Pack & Bakhtiari Shahab

Michelle, Wang, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University

Learning neuroimaging biomarkers of Parkinson’s disease progression from cross-sectional and longitudinal data

Supervisors: Jean-Baptiste Poline & Glatard Tristan

Postdoctoral research funding

Colin, Bredenberg, Département de mathématiques et de statistique, Universitéd de Montréal

Scaling and testing synaptic plasticity algorithms for motor control

Supervisors: Guillaume Lajoie & Richards Blake

Olivier, Codol, Département de neurosciences, Universitéd de Montréal

In search of the teaching signal for continuous control
Supervisors: Matthew G. Perich & Lajoie Guillaume 

2023-2024 Competition

Masters excellence scholarships

Hamza Abdelhedi, Département d’informatique et de recherche opérationnelle, Université de Montréal

Linking human and artificial neural representations underlying face recognition: Combined insights from MEG and CNNs

Supervisors: Karim Jerbi & Shehab Bakhtari

Kira Dolhan, Interfaculty Studies, Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University

Applying Machine Learning to Functional Brain Connectivity Data to Identify Covert

Consciousness

Supervisors: Stefanie Blain-Moraes & Karim Jerbi

Léo Gagnon, Département d’informatique et de recherche opérationnelle, Université de Montréal

Compositional Object-Centric Representations with Cortical Columns Inspired Architecture

Supervisors: Guillaume Lajoie & Blake Richards

Mahta Ramezanian-Panahi, Département d’informatique et de recherche opérationnelle, Université de Montréal

Multimodal Models for finding Brain Latent Representations (Brain2Vec)

Supervisors: Irina Rish & Guillaume Dumas

Dylan Sutterlin-Guindon, Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal

Analyses de médiation sur des patrons d’activité cérébrale multivariés

Supervisors: Pierre Rainville & Simona Brambati

Doctoral excellence scholarships

Renaud Bernatchez, Faculté des sciences et de génie, Université Laval

Multi-task attention network exploiting unlabeled data to elucidate the remodeling of the F-actin lattice

Supervisors: Flavie Lavoie-Cardinal & Audrey Durand
(Scholarship declined by the awardee)

Peter Brotherwood, Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal

Behaviorally constrained spatio-temporal scene representations in the human brain.

Supervisors: Ian Charest & Frédéric Gosselin

Léo Choinière, Département de neurosciences, Université de Montréal

Apprentissage machine pour l’optimisation de neuroprothèses évoquants des mouvements complexes

Supervisors: Numa Dancause & Guillaume Lajoie

Adrian El Baz, Génie biomédical, Polytechnique Montréal

Develop and deploy an evidence-based, comprehensive, open-source and sustainable federated learning framework for the segmentation of MS lesions in MRI data

Supervisors: Julien Cohen-Adad & Nikola Stikov

Eric Elmoznino, Département d’informatique et de recherche opérationnelle, Université de Montréal

Improving artificial intelligence using insights from the inner workings of human consciousness

Supervisors: Guillaume Lajoie & Yoshua Bengio

Xanthy Lajoie, Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal

Les différences entre les sexes dans le réseau fonctionnel du langage

Supervisors: Simona Brambati & Pierre Bellec

Antoine Légaré, Département de biochimie, de microbiologie et de bio-informatique, Université Laval

Influence des neuromodulateurs sur les états cérébraux du poisson-zèbre en développement

Supervisors: Patrick Desrosiers & Paul De Koninck

Filip Milisav, Integrated Program in Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University

Mapping structure to computational function in the human connectome using reservoir computing

Supervisors: Bratislav Misic & Guillaume Lajoie

Marie-Eve Picard, Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal

Intégration de signaux psychophysiologiques pour l’optimisation de modèles neurocomportementaux individuels de la performance à des jeux vidéo

Supervisors: Pierre Rainville & Pierre Bellec

(Scholarship declined by the awardee)

Jacob Sanz-Robinson, Neuroscience IPN, McGill University

NeuroCI: Continuous Integration of Neuroimaging Results Across Software Pipelines and Datasets

Supervisors: Jean-Baptiste Poline & Tristan Glatard

Postdoctoral research funding

Katarzyna Jurewicz, Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, McGill University

Goal-directed search during active vision

Supervisors: Suresh Krishna & Irina Rish

Agah Karakuzu, Génie biomédical, Polytechnique Montréal

Removing artificial variance for artificial intelligence: Self-driving MRI acquisition powered by AI to minimize data bias

Supervisors: Nikola Stikov & Pierre Bellec

Daniel Levenstein, Medicine, McGill University

Modeling sleep dependent learning in artificial neural networks

Supervisors: Blake Richards & Adrien Peyrache

Andrea Luppi, Montreal Neurological Institute, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, McGill University

Synergistic information in artificial and biological neural networks

Supervisors: Bratislav Misic & Danilo Bzdok

2022-2023 Competition 

Masters excellence scholarships

Frédéric Beaupré, Faculté des sciences et de génie, Université Laval

Deep Learning for the detection of synaptic anomalies in super-resolution microscopy

Supervisors: Christian Gagné & Flavie Lavoie-Cardinal

Léo Choinière, Département de Neurosciences, Université de Montréal

Apprentissage machine pour l'optimisation de neuroprothèses évoquants des mouvements complexes

Supervisors: Numa Dancause & Guillaume Lajoie

(Scholarship declined by the awardee)

Nanda Harishankar Krishna, Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle, Université de Montréal

Probing learning dynamics in recurrent neural networks and the brain

Supervisors: Guillaume Lajoie & Blake Richards

Nizar Islah, Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle, Université de Montréal

Computational Modeling of Neocortical mechanisms for Continual Learning

Supervisors: Eilif Muller & Irina Rish

Poune Mirzazadeh, Département de Neurosciences, Université de Montréal

Computational modeling of the distributed brain circuits of decision-making

Supervisors: Paul Cisek & Andrea Green

Diganta Misra, Département d'informatique et de recherche opérationnelle, Université de Montréal

Distillation and Reprogramming in unbalanced long sequences under anytime learning regime

Supervisors: Irina Rish & Pouya Bashivan

Motahareh Pour Ahimi, Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University

Developing a Generalized Computational Model of Attention in Primates

Supervisors: Pouya Bashivan & Guillaume Lajoie

Alyssia Sanchez, Department of Bioengineering, McGill University

Establishing Neurophysiological Evidence for the Treatment of Coma

Supervisors: Stefanie Blain-Moraes & Karim Jerbi

(Scholarship declined by the awardee)

Enning Yang, Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University

Linking AI's understanding with naturalistic stimuli with human brain activity

Supervisors: Danilo Bzdok & Bratislav Misic

Doctoral excellence scholarships

Muni Venkata Naga Karthik Enamundram, Génie biomédical, Polytechnique Montréal

A Probabilistic Continual Learning Framework for Multiple Sclerosis Lesion Segmentation

Supervisors: Julien Cohen-Adad & Farida Cheriet

Simon Faghel-Soubeyrand, Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal

Decoding real-world perceptual ability variations in humans using brain imaging and machine learning

Supervisors: Frédéric Gosselin & Ian Charest

Busra Tugce Gurbuz, Quantitative Life Sciences, McGill University

A Neuroscience Inspired Approach To Continual Few-Shot Learning

Supervisors: Christopher Pack & Eilif Muller

Catherine Landry, Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal

Différences individuelles dans la perception et l’imagerie mentale de scènes visuelles étudiées avec la neuroimagerie et l'apprentissage machine

Supervisors: Ian Charest & Frédéric Gosselin

Charlotte Maschke, Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University

Classifying current and future states of consciousness using dynamic EEG responses to anesthesia

Supervisors: Stefanie Blain-Moraes & Karim Jerbi

Postdoctoral research funding

Quentin Moreau, Département de psychiatrie, Université de Montréal

CLONE: CLOsed-loop NEuromodulation: EEG-tES combination in human-machine social interactions

Supervisors: Guillaume Dumas & Karim Jerbi

Melanie Segado, Département de mathématiques et de statistique, Université de Montréal

Transmodality of Co-Adaptive Algorithms In Neural Interfacing (

Supervisors: Guillaume Lajoie & Blake Richards

(Scholarship declined by the awardee)

Hao-Ting Wang, Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal, Université de Montréal

Impact of age and sex on transdiagnostic brain biomarkers amongst neurodegenerative conditions

Supervisors: Pierre Bellec & Jean-Baptiste Poline

(Scholarship declined by the awardee)

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