Our people

Faculty

Principal investigator

Maryam M. Shanechi

Alexander A. Sawchuk Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Computer Science
Founding Director, USC Center for Neurotechnology

Her research brings together AI, machine learning, and dynamical systems to model brain activity and develop neurotechnology.

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Biography & honors

Maryam Shanechi is the Alexander A. Sawchuk Chair and Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Neuroscience, and Biomedical Engineering at USC. She is also the Founding Director of the new USC Center for Neurotechnology. She joined USC as Assistant Professor in July 2014. Prior to that, she was Assistant Professor at Cornell University’s ECE department in 2014. She received the B.A.Sc. degree with honors in Engineering Science from the University of Toronto in 2004 and the S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2006 and 2011, respectively. She works at the interface of AI, machine learning, and dynamical systems to develop neurotechnology and study the brain. Her work has led to closed-loop brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) to restore lost motor function in neurological disorders. She has also developed a new generation of BCIs to restore lost emotional function in neuropsychiatric disorders through decoding of mental states and closed-loop deep brain stimulation.

Research associate

Omid G. Sani

Omid G. Sani is a Research Associate and former PhD student in the Shanechi lab. He is interested in developing machine learning methods for modeling neural-behavioral data, and in developing closed-loop control systems for neuromodulation to treat neuropsychiatric disorders. He received a B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering and an M.Sc. degree in Biomedical Engineering both from Sharif University of Technology, in 2013 and 2015 respectively. He started his PhD at USC in 2015 and received the Annenberg fellowship. He was selected as an MHI scholar at USC in 2019. He received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from USC in 2020 and won the Best Doctoral Dissertation Award at USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

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Postdoctoral scholars

Han-Lin Hsieh

Han-Lin Hsieh is a Postdoctoral Scholar and former PhD student in the Shanechi Lab. During his PhD studies, his research focused on the design of closed-loop brain–machine interface control architectures for motor function. As a Postdoctoral Scholar, he studies neural dynamics in the brain through geometric and topological approaches. He received both B.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics from National Taiwan University in 2013. He was awarded the Viterbi Fellowship at the University of Southern California (USC), where he earned both his M.S. and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering in 2018 and 2022, respectively.

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HyeongChan Jo

HyeongChan Jo is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Shanechi lab. His research focuses on the design of models of stimulation effect on various brain states such as depression. He received a B.Sc. degree in Bio and Brain Engineering from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in 2015. He received his PhD in Bioengineering from Caltech in 2021.

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Danil Tyulmankov

Danil Tyulmankov is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Shanechi lab. His research focuses on the design of mathematical tools for computational neuroscience. He received a B.Sc. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from University of Massachusetts Amherst, and a Master of Engineering (M.Eng.) in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his PhD in Theoretical Neuroscience from Columbia University.

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Graduate students

Lucine Oganesian

Lucine Oganesian is a Ph.D. student in the ECE Department at USC. She received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from UC Berkeley in 2016. She worked as a software engineer at Google for 4 years before starting her Ph.D. at USC. When not at her computer, she can be found in the kitchen or at a park training capoeira.

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Trisha Jha

Trisha Jha is a Ph.D. student in the ECE Department at USC. She received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 2018 and 2020 respectively. She received the Viterbi Graduate School Fellowship from USC in 2020. Trisha is interested in using machine learning and signal processing to address neuroscience problems.

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Enes Burak Bilgin

Enes Burak Bilgin is a Ph.D. student in the ECE department at USC. He received his B.S. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Bilkent University, Turkey in 2020.

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Sayed Mohammad Hosseini

Sayed Mohammad Hosseini is a Ph.D. student in the ECE department at USC. He received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology in 2022.

Parastoo Azizeddin

Parastoo Azizeddin is a Ph.D. student in the ECE department at USC. She received her B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology in 2022.

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Daniel Jilani

Daniel Jilani is a Ph.D. student in the ECE department at USC. He received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from UC Irvine in 2023.

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Saba Hashemi

Saba Hashemi is a Ph.D. student in the CS department at USC. She received her B.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering from Sharif University of Technology in 2023.

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Kiarash Vaziri

Kiarash Vaziri is a Ph.D. student in the ECE department at USC. He received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology in 2023.

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Zeynep Unal

Zeynep Unal is a Ph.D. student in the ECE Department at USC. She received her B.S. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Bilkent University, Turkey in 2024.

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Milad Heidari

Milad Heidari is a Ph.D. student in the ECE department at USC. He received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering at Sharif University in 2024.

Ethan Devara

Ethan Devara is a Ph.D. student in the Neuroscience Graduate Program at USC. He received his B.S.A degree in Neuroscience from the University of Texas at Austin in 2020.

Alper Ozdemir

Alper Ozdemir is a Ph.D. student in the ECE department at USC. He received his B.S. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Bilkent University, Turkey in 2025.

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Alireza Habibzadeh

Alireza Habibzadeh is a Ph.D. student in the ECE department at USC. He received his B.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering and Physics from Sharif University of Technology in 2025.

Alumni

Yuxiao Yang

Yuxiao Yang was a Postdoctoral Scholar and a PhD student in the Shanechi Lab at USC, obtaining his PhD in 2019. He is now an Assistant Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Central Florida.

Christoph Schneider

Christoph Schneider was a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Shanechi Lab at USC. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Ramin Bighamian

Ramin Bighamian was a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Shanechi Lab at USC. He is currently a Staff Fellow at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Allison Connolly

Allison Connolly was a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Shanechi Lab at USC. She is currently an associate director at Abbott.

Eray Erturk

Eray Erturk was an ECE Ph.D. student in the Shanechi Lab at USC. He is now a Health ML Engineer at Apple.

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DongKyu Kim

DongKyu Kim was an ECE Ph.D. student in the Shanechi Lab at USC. He is now a Software Engineer at Google.

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Parima Ahmadipouranari

Parima Ahmadipour was an ECE Ph.D. student in Shanechi Lab at USC, obtaining her PhD in 2025.

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Parsa Vahidi

Parsa Vahidi was an ECE Ph.D. student in Shanechi Lab at USC, obtaining his PhD in 2025. He is now an Applied Scientist at Amazon.

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Yanyu Li

Yanyu Li was an ECE Ph.D. student in Shanechi Lab at USC, obtaining his PhD in 2025.

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Nitin Sadras

Nitin Sadras was an ECE Ph.D. student in Shanechi Lab at USC, obtaining his PhD in 2024. He is now a Senior Data Scientist at AE Studio.

Christian Song

Christian Song was a Ph.D. student in the Shanechi Lab at USC, obtaining his PhD in 2023. He is now an R&D Engineer at Sony.

Salar Abbaspourazad

Salar Abbaspourazad was a Ph.D. student in the Shanechi Lab at USC, obtaining his PhD in 2022. He is now a Machine Learning Scientist at Apple.

Chuanmeizhi Wang

Chuanmeizhi Wang was a Ph.D. student in the Shanechi Lab at USC, obtaining his PhD in 2022.

Tsam Kiu Pun

Tsam-Kiu Pun was an undergraduate researcher in the Shanechi Lab at USC. She is now a PhD candidate in the BrainGate team, Brown University.

Isabel Díaz Miranda

Isabel Díaz Miranda was a visiting undergraduate researcher from ITAM (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México).

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