Team
Principal Investigator
Jonathan Kao
Jonathan is an Associate Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at UCLA, where he directs the Neural Engineering and Computation Lab. He received his BS, MS, and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
Fun: cooking, reading; playing the piano, guitar, cello; swimming, biking, ultimate frisbee, climbing, hiking; watching football and other sports.
Email | Google Scholar | Twitter | GitHub | Profile
Postdoctoral Scholars
Abishek Mishra
Postdoctoral Scholar, 2023 -
PhD with Professor Alexander Borst, Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence, Germany.
Studied neural mechanisms underlying motion vision in Drosophila.
M. Tech Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur.
B.Tech Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur.
Research interests: applying machine learning techniques to increase the performance of brain-machine-interface (BMI) systems and design augmentative artificial intelligence for BMIs.
Fun: playing chess, cricket, and football. He also has a youtube channel where he teaches mathematics and python programming.
Email | Google Scholar | GitHub | LinkedIn | Profile | YouTube
PhD Students
BS in Physics, UC Irvine, 2016.
BS in Neurobiology & Behavior, UC Irvine, 2016.
Research interests: using machine learning to augment and improve the performance of non-invasive brain computer interfaces as well as understanding interpretability and universality in deep neural network models.
Fun: snowboarding, surfing, and hiking
BS in Mathematics, UC Irvine, 2021.
BS in Neurobiology, UC Irvine, 2021, studied how individual hippocampal subfields contribute to episodic memory and developed conductance-based models of hypothalamic neurons.
Research interests: using machine learning to model and analyze neural activity in order to better understand the neural dynamics underlying various behavioral states and improve brain-computer interfaces.
Fun: hiking, camping, and spending time with his dogs
BS in ECE, UCLA, 2021.
Research interests: studying dynamical mechanisms used by various brain areas to complete cognitive tasks through RNN modeling, neuroscience inspired algorithms, and reinforcement learning.
Fun: rock climbing, working at the UCLA Rock Wall, or flying on the traveling rings at Original Muscle Beach in Santa Monica.
BS in Computer Science, Columbia University, 2022. Research focus on statistical machine learning tools for spike sorting and video analysis.
Research interests: building control algorithms for closed-loop neuromuscular and brain-computer interfaces.
Fun: playing tennis, skiing, and pretentious cooking.
Email | Google Scholar | GitHub | Profile
MS and post-bachelors
Shawn Dong
MS CS, 2024-
BS in Comp Sci & Engr, UCLA, 2024
Research interests: information extraction and data generation with NLP techniques, multi-agent interaction and collaboration, LLM agent, and model robustness
Fun: playing electric guitar (mainly rock and metal music), motor-racing on racetracks and simulators
Andy Zhang
Post BS
BS in Data Theory, UCLA, 2024
Research interests: machine learning and data engineering, particularly deep neural networks, diffusion models for shared autonomy, robotic arm manipulation
Fun: he loves to cook, make coffee, and he plays badminton competitively for the UCLA varsity team.
Xu Yan
MS ECE, 2022-
MS in Computational Linguistics, University of Washington, 2022.
BA in English, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 2019.
Research interests: increasing the performance and the generalization ability of non-invasive brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and integrating BCIs into daily life to make life better.
Fun: basketball, cycling, skating, and cooking
Undergraduate Students
Jason Chan
CS, 2022-
Research interests: machine learning, bioinformatics, and computational neuroscience
Fun: exercising, playing piano, and trying new foods
Michaela Chou
ECE, 2022-
Research interests: Her research interests include signal processing and machine learning.
Fun: trying new foods and spending time with friends.
Shreyas Kaasyap
ECE, 2022-
Research interests: machine learning, particularly with applications to biology and neuroscience. His past work involved applying machine learning to CT scans from pre-modern and modern data to identify structural differences between them.
Fun: playing basketball, chess, as well as playing the guitar and piano, and is an active officer of the UCLA ACM ICPC team.
Kit Munn
ECE, 2022-
Anna Wang
Comp Math & Cog Sci, 2021-
Research interests: brain-computer interfaces, computational and statistical modeling for human behavior and cognition, and brain-inspired artificial intelligence.
Fun: watching sports (especially soccer games) and movies and travelling
Yuanyuan Xue
CS, 2023-
Research interests: brain-computer interfaces, computational neuroscience, and machine learning
Fun: playing the piano, reading, and growing flowers.
Michael Zhou
CS, 2023-
Research interests: machine learning and shared autonomy
Fun: singing, photography, dance, and rock climbing.
Alumni