Lab Director
Yalda Shahriari, Ph.D.
Dr. Yalda Shahriari is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and the director of NeuralPC Lab at the University of Rhode Island. Her research interests are biomedical signal processing, brain-computer interface (BCI), machine learning algorithms, healthcare units, and biomedical statistical data analysis.
Dr. Shahriari joined URI in 2016 after completing her postdoctoral studies at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), following the achievement of her PhD at the Old Dominion University in 2015. Dr. Shahriari is the recipient of multiple National Science Foundation awards, including NSF/DARE, NSF/NCS, NSF/HCC, and Rhode Island IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence. She is a professional member of Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) Society, Society for Neuroscience (SfN), IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology, and IEEE Signal Processing Society.
Curriculum Vitae: https://web.uri.edu/neuralpclab/wp-content/uploads/sites/2198/Yalda-Shahriari-CV-2024_General.pdf
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Anan Yaghmour Ph.D.
Anan received his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Jordan (2017), his M.Sc. in Systems, Control, and Signal Processing from the University of Southampton (2018), and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Houston (May 2025). His research spans machine learning, neural signal processing, and geospatial artificial intelligence, with a particular focus on multimodal representation learning and robustness under domain shift. Anan has developed Bayesian state-space models and adaptive estimators for decoding latent cognitive states from EEG, fNIRS, and electrodermal activity, as well as generative and domain-generalization frameworks for hyperspectral and satellite imagery using masked autoencoders, GANs, and pseudo-label refinement. Across both neurophysiological and remote-sensing applications, his work emphasizes principled uncertainty modeling, cross-domain transfer, and scalable learning systems for real-world deployment.
Graduate Students
Behtom Adeli, Ph.D. Student
Dissertation: TBD
Fall 2023 –
Behtom is a Ph.D. student in Neural Engineering at the NeuralPC Lab, with research interests at the intersection of neural engineering, neuroscience, and deep learning. He is now working on developing a VR framework to elucidate visual hallucination from patients with Parkinson’s disease using multimodal neuroimaging and finding neural signatures of VH using explainable deep fusion models.
Saba Bijari, Ph.D. Student
Dissertation: TBD
Fall 2022-
Alexander Cerullo, Ph.D. Student
Project: Multimodal EEG-fNIRS Analysis of Motor Imagery of Rhythmic Action Observation
Spring 2023 – Spring 2025 Master’s student
Spring 2025 –
His studies focus on neural engineering, statistical analysis, non-linear non-stationary data analysis, machine learning, and experimental design. He is currently working on multiple projects related to the interactions between action observation, motor imagery, mirror neurons, mental rotation, auditory processing, intended motion, and motion prediction systems. After earning a M.S. degree he continues his work as a Ph.D. student.
Undergraduate Students
Hannah Smith
Cassandra Naughton
Alumni
John McLinden, Ph.D.
Thesis: Electro-Vascular Dynamics During Auditory Processing: Variation Along the Schizotypy Continuum
Fall 2020 – Fall 2026
John is currently working as a postdoctoral fellow at Northeastern University. His research interests include noninvasive neuroimaging techniques, physiological processing, and the exploration of auditory processing.
Juan Manuel Mayor-Torres, Ph.D.
Juan is a postdoctoral fellow in NeuraPClab. He has a PhD in Computer Science, University of Trento, Italy. His work has been mainly focused on characterizing behavioral and clinical outcome measures from multiple biosignal and neural representations (e.g EEG, ECG, PPG) from clinical populations, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Stroke using Deep Learning and Foundational models. Juan has been working as research assistant in Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) and Stony Brook University, and as a postdoc in University College Dublin (UCD).
Maryam Norouzi, Ph.D. Student
Fall 2022- Summer 2025
Maryam’s research was focused on analyzing simultaneous fNIRS and EEG signals collected from subjects engaged in sustained attention tasks. The goal was to identify biomarkers linked to sustained attention and utilize these findings to develop an adaptive decoder that integrates fused fNIRS-EEG features. Furthermore, her work included advancing novel tripolar EEG technology.
Jay Vincelli, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Development and Evaluation of Novel Electrode Designs and Gels for Use in Electroencephalography
Fall 2025
Jay is now a postdoctoral researcher at Dartmouth College.
Pankaj Pandey, Ph.D.
Pankaj Pandey worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the NeuralPC Lab, where he researched on decoding cognitive tasks through multimodal neuroimaging data.
He is now a postdoctoral fellow at St. Jude children’s research hospital.
Bahram Borgheai, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Incorporating Hemodynamic Cognitive Neuromarkers for Personalized Assistive Communication Technology
Fall 2018-Spring 2022
He is currently a postdoc at Georgia Tech and Emory University School of Medicine.
Sarah Hosni, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Multimodal Integration of Motor Imagery-based Signatures for Neural Response Classification
Fall 2017- Dec 2021
Currently a lecturer at Old Dominion University.
Roohi Jafari, Ph.D.
Dissertation: Spectro-Temporal Based Quantification of Brain Functions in Neurological Disorders
Fall 2017-Spring 2021
Currently a postdoc at Georgia Tech and Emory University School of Medicine.
Alyssa Hillary Zisk, Ph.D.
Dissertation: QUANTIFYING AND COMPENSATING FOR P300 VARIATIONS IN AMYOTROPHIC LATERAL SCLEROSIS
They are the Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Research Team Lead at AssistiveWare (more).
James McIntire M.S.
Project:
Currently a Research Engineer at The Center for Applied Brain and Cognitive Sciences (CABCS) at Tufts University
