Research interests
My research programme is about understanding visuo-semantic cognition in healthy populations and individuals affected by mental health disorders (using cognitive computational neuroscience, NeuroAI, and neurotechnology techniques).
My research has focused on probing specific visual dimensions in the context of face, animacy, and object representations more generally. I combine experimental behavioural tasks, brain imaging (fMRI and M/EEG), and, through collaborations, macaque electrophysiology, where I use machine learning techniques for data analysis and computational modelling with a special interest in biologically-inspired deep learning and AI models (Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=oEifmSgAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate).
Under my recent grant, I plan to disentangle and model behaviourally-relevant visual and semantic dimensions of visual cognition in the human brain:
- characterise behaviourally-relevant visual and semantic dimensions of visual cognition by the use of large-scale brain imaging datasets of responses to images and model these representations with AI models (deep neural networks),
- define and model dimensions related to the perception of animacy when interacting with objects and people using videos,
- determine to what extent these brain representations and dimensions change when humans are immersed in the environment (using mobile EEG).
I am also a member of Cambridge NeuroWorks (powered by Advanced Research and Invention Agency – ARIA), where I am exploring applying my expertise in visuo-semantic cognition and AI to neurotechnology and mental health applications, specifically in the context of interfacing with the brain through non-invasive focused ultrasound stimulation and utilising generative AI for exposure therapy in healthy populations and those affected by mental health disorders. I have also been a member of the Center for Brains, Minds & Machines, now MIT Quest for Intelligence.
Biography
My research interest has been influenced by working with and being inspired by my mentors and colleagues, whom I am grateful for. After a completion of a BSc in Biotechnology at the University of Warsaw, I did an MPhil and a PhD in Biological Sciences at the University of Cambridge. My PhD was in the field of breast cancer genomics where I worked with Jason Carroll. I collaborated with Simon Baron-Cohen using genomics techniques in autism research. During the PhD, in parallel to the genomics research, I started working with Marieke Mur and Niko Kriegeskorte investigating feature-based and categorical representations in object recognition. Subsequently, I was a Humboldt fellow working with Radek Cichy at the Free University Berlin, studying animacy dimensions in object recognition and comparing words and images object representations. In recent years, I have been a Sir Henry Wellcome fellow working with Jim DiCarlo and Nancy Kanwisher at MIT.