UNIQUE Excellence Scholarships

UNIQUE Excellence Scholarships

2025-2026 Competiton

UNIQUE Excellence Scholarships (MSc, PhD and Postdocs)
[Competition closed] 

This program aims to promote interdisciplinary research between the fields of artificial intelligence and neuroscience and support training opportunities for master's, doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows. The amount awarded to successful candidates is $10,000 for the master students, $15,000 for Ph.D. students and $20,000 for the postdoctoral fellows, for a one-year non-renewable term. This program is made possible thanks to the FRQNT Research Clusters program and generous support from UNIQUE's institutional and CFREF partners (see list).

For more information on the eligibility criteria (for applicants and their supervisors), the application and evaluation procedures, please refer to the program description and application form above.

List of awardees

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)