Brain2Brain Study: Researchers

	Rajesh P. N. Rao is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering department at the University of Washington (UW), Seattle, a faculty member in the UW Neurobiology & Behavior program, and a member of the leadership council of the NSF Engineering Research Center on Sensorimotor Neural Engineering. He received his PhD from the University of Rochester and was an Alfred P. Sloan postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies before joining UW. He is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award, an ONR Young Investigator Award, a Sloan Faculty Fellowship, and a David and Lucile Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering. He is the author of the new textbook Brain-Computer Interfacing (Cambridge University Press, 2013) and the co-editor of two volumes, Probabilistic Models of the Brain (MIT Press, 2002) and Bayesian Brain (MIT Press, 2007). His research spans the areas of computational neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and brain-computer interfacing. In his not-so-copious spare time, he also works on the 4000-year-old Indus script (on which he has given a TED talk) and indulges in his passion for classical Indian miniature paintings.
	Andrea Stocco is a Research Assistant Professor in the Cognition and Cognitive Dynamics Lab (CCDL) at I-LABS. He was born in an Italian star-shaped city named Palmanova, obtained his PhD in Psychology at the University of Trieste, and was a postdoc and research faculty at Carnegie Mellon University before joining the University of Washington. His current research concerns the representation of rules in the brain, and especially the basal ganglia, and the computational nature of cognitive flexibility.
	Chantel Prat is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at UW. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of California, Davis, working with Debra Long, and trained subsequently at the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging with Marcel Just. Dr. Prat’s research investigates the nature of biological constraints on information processing, with an emphasis on the neural correlates of individual differences in language comprehension abilities. Her current research at the Cognition and Cortical Dynamics Laboratory (CCDL) employs the combination of fMRI, TMS, DTI, and behavioral paradigms to investigate the neural basis of individual differences in language and cognition. Dr. Prat was named Young Investigator for 2011 by the Society for Text and Discourse. The purpose of this award is to recognize outstanding early career contributions to text and discourse research. Recipients have demonstrated exceptional and innovative contributions to discourse research and show superior promise as leaders in the field.
	Dev Sarma is a researcher in the Neural Systems Laboratory and GridLab at UW, and a doctoral student in the Bioengineering department. His thesis research is focused on EEG and ECoG brain-computer interfacing.
	Matthew Bryan is a UW CSE almunus currently working at EMC Isilon in downtown Seattle. His research focuses on creating brain-computer interfaces. His contributions employ various machine learning techniques to allow the devices to work for a wider variety of people, to be more robust to noise, and to adapt to the users' changing needs over time. He has led several undergraduate research teams in Prof. Rajesh Rao's Neural Systems Laboratory, has published and presented papers at various venues around the world, and recently received a grant from UW's Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering. This seed grant funds a spin-off project from his work, which will be continued in his absence over the next two years. Matt also recently received the prestigious Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award for 2013 from the Computing Research Association. He now works on distributed file systems as a Senior Software Development Engineer at EMC Isilon.
	Alex Dadgar is a graduating senior in the Computer Science department. Within the program, he conducts research under the guidance of Professor Rao. His interests lie in the field of Human Computer Interfaces and Systems Programming. In the future, he envisions either going to graduate school or joining a relevant tech startup.
	Bryan Djunaedi is a undergraduate researcher working with Dev Sarma and Professor Rao in the Neural Systems Laboratory. A junior working towards a double degree in computer science and biochemistry, his research focuses on EEG-based brain-computer interfacing. He is also an avid violinist.
	Joseph Wu is an undergraduate researcher in the Neural Systems Laboratory working in the area of EEG brain-computer interfacing and machine learning. He is a junior in the CSE department and Chemistry department, aiming to enter the medical profession in the future.