Our Team

Bas Rokers

Professor of Psychology; Global Network Professor of Psychology

Bas Rokers directs the Center for Brain and Health and the Neuroimaging Center at New York University Abu Dhabi. His research aims to uncover the neural basis of visual perception, with emphasis on motion and depth perception. He has previously held positions at Utrecht University, the University of Wisconsin – Madison and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition to basic research, he has contributed to science education through the Wisconsin Virtual Brain Project and the National Geographic Brain Games series.

Contact: rokers@nyu.edu

Abdalla Mohamed

Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Abdalla Z Mohamed holds a PhD in Medicine from the University of Queensland, Australia (2021), complemented by a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering from Kyung Hee University, South Korea (2016), and a Bachelor’s from Cairo University, Egypt (2012). Following a post-doctoral stint at the University of the Sunshine Coast (2020 to 2023), Abdalla transitioned to his current role in December 2023, emphasizing his commitment to advancing research.

Specializing in neuroimaging applications for investigating clinical populations, including trauma, dementia, and others, Abdalla employs various modalities, including structural, diffusion, and functional MRI, and positron emission tomography (PET) in both human and animal models. At NYUAD, his primary focus is pioneering methods to identify distinct health condition phenotypes. Integrating neuroimaging with behavioral and cognitive assessments and genetic markers, Abdalla aims to uncover underlying brain changes across diverse health states, contributing to developing precise treatment protocols for targeted populations.

Contact: azm9155@nyu.edu

Puti Wen

Postdoctoral Fellow

Puti Wen graduated from Belmont University in 2018 with a B.S. in Psychology and a minor in Mathematics. She completed her Ph.D. at NYU in 2024, focusing on 3D motion perception in the human visual cortex. She is currently conducting research on multiple sclerosis using multimodal MRI.

Contact: pw1246@nyu.edu

Rania Ezzo

Doctoral Student

Rania graduated with a bachelor’s degree of Arts from Boston University with a double major in Philosophy and Psychology, 2015. She is a Ph.D. student in the NYU Cognition & Perception program. Her research focuses on the understanding of how the human brain represents and processes motion. Currently, she is working on characterizing the behavioral profile of several motion perception asymmetries with the aim of connecting behavior to neurophysiology.

Contact: rania.ezzo@nyu.edu

Ameen Qadi

Lab Manager & Research Assistant

Ameen oversees research operations and collaborates on neuroimaging projects at the Rokers Vision Lab. His work involves building and optimizing data pipelines with a particular focus on diffusion MRI analyses for the Abu Dhabi Research Institute (ARI) consortium. He is also involved in the development of XNAT, an imaging storage and preprocessing platform designed to support neuroimaging researchers at NYUAD.

Ameen’s background includes extensive experience in clinical neuroscience research with a focus on using MRI to explore structural biomarkers in neurological and psychiatric disorders. He is passionate about translating research into practical outcomes and fostering collaborations across disciplines. In addition, he engages in outreach activities, teaching MRI workshops, and mentoring students, while actively contributing to open-access repositories to support the broader scientific community. Ameen graduated from the Mount Sinai School Of Medicine with an MS in Biomedical Sciences, specializing in Diffusion Neuroimaging. He also holds a BS in Chemistry from Fordham University, where he investigated J-coupling in higher-order NMR spectra and worked on protein structure elucidation.

Contact: asa8168@nyu.edu

Aysha Anatoli Hamkari

Research Assistant

Aysha graduated from New York University Abu Dhabi in 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology specializing in Brain and Cognitive Science. In the past, she has done research on visual working memory and the sensory recruitment hypothesis, exploring its implications for visual detection. She is currently a Research Assistant for Rokers Vision Laboratory and the Center for Brain and Health. Aysha is intrigued by the applications of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and optimizing both sequences and methods to reflect desired neural activity. Her ongoing research interests center on understanding the neural mechanisms underlying depth perception for healthy and clinical populations with perceptual impairments, extending to her dedication for translating research in this area into practical applications and diagnostics. Aysha is also an advocate for research inclusivity, actively promoting the use of region-specific data samples to better reflect diverse local populations.

Contact: aah698@nyu.edu

Dana Alkalali

Research Assistant

Dana Alkalali holds a Master’s degree in Genomic Medicine from Queen Mary University in London, where her dissertation combined bulk and single-cell transcriptomic data to analyze immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Behavioral Neuroscience from Northeastern University in Boston, where she also worked as a research assistant in the Lifespan Emotional Development Laboratory, studying emotion regulation strategies in adults. Currently, Dana is a research assistant at the Aspire Precision Medicine Research Institute, where she recruits participants for a multimodal biobank and integrates MRI and genomic data. Additionally, Dana is involved in a pilot project to establish a Multiple Sclerosis biobank in the UAE, aiming to identify population-specific biomarkers at the transcriptomic and proteomic levels. She also assists in manual lesion segmentation of MS patients to train an AI-model being developed in the lab. 

Contact: dna8993@nyu.edu

Abraiz Azhar

Research Assistant

Abraiz graduated from New York University Abu Dhabi in 2024 with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, with minors in Applied Mathematics and Interactive Media. He first joined the Rokers Vision Lab in 2022, working under the direct supervision of Dr. Bas Rokers. Abraiz specializes in VR development using Unity, with his current research focused on integrating both new and established behavioral tests of visual function into virtual and augmented reality environments. These tests include, but are not limited to visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and stereopsis. Additionally, Abraiz is involved in the Lab’s collaboration with the Brain Game Center at Northeastern University (Aaron Seitz et al.) where he is assisting in the development of a VR-based perimetry test that aims to replicate the functionality of the Humphrey Visual Field Analyzer. Driven by a commitment to innovation, Abraiz aims to make vision tests more accessible for patients at home by developing practical VR solutions for applications in ophthalmology

Contact: mk7592@nyu.edu

Soumen Mohanty

Research Assistant

 Soumen is a research assistant with a background in Computer Science, having earned his Bachelor of Science from NYU Abu Dhabi in 2024. His work focuses on research support through the development of an imaging informatics platform that helps researchers store, organize, retrieve, and process data. He also contributes to data analysis, visualization, and machine learning. Currently, he is involved in Project Laminate at the Center for Brain and Health (CBH), developing an AI tool to segment multiple sclerosis lesions and track brain atrophy. His previous projects include training neural networks for liver vessel segmentation.

Contact: soumen.mohanty@nyu.edu

Osama Abdullah

MRI Physicist

Dr. Osama joined New York University Abu Dhabi as the MRI Physicist to establish the first dedicated MRI research center in the MENA region. The MRI center is supporting expanding research programs focusing on human vision, language processing, and articulation of classical Arabic letters. Osama received his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Utah and postdoctoral training in the Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, from the same institute. His research interests have recently evolved to include the deployment of deep learning methods for clinical imaging applications, with a particular emphasis on structural and functional MRI studies in animals and humans.

In recognition of his work advancing medical imaging technology, Dr. Osama was awarded merit recognition from the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, specifically for his work in modeling vascular flow and myocardial growth with diffusion MRI (2013 and 2016). Additionally, Dr. Osama has received several research grants including the inaugural Young Investigator Award from Abu Dhabi’s Education and Knowledge Department (2020) and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society of the UAE (2024) for building an AI-based lesion segmentation for clinical patients.

Contact: osama.abdullah@nyu.edu

Daya Sharma

Projects & Operations Manager

Daya is a highly accomplished professional with a rich background in Human Resources, Project Management, Research Adminstration and Operations Management. She is a certified Human Resource Management professional from the prestigious Chartered Management Institute in the UK, certified PMP, and holds an MBA in Human Resources and Organizational Psychology from the Universidad Católica de Murcia in Spain. With over a decade of invaluable experience, Daya has honed her expertise in various facets of Human Resources, Project Management, and Operations Management. Her career journey began in the aviation industry in 2003, where she contributed significantly in diverse roles, demonstrating her versatility and proficiency.

In 2018, Daya embarked on a new chapter in her career by joining NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) in Employees Relations in the Office of Human Resources. As Projects and Operations Manager, Daya plays a pivotal role in NYUAD’s research landscape. She oversees a wide spectrum of responsibilities, including overall administration, project management, grants management, strategic planning, and resource allocation. Her dedicated efforts extend across multiple entities, including the Center for Brain and Health, Abu Dhabi Precision Medicine-Aspire Research Institute, and Rokers Vision Lab in the Division of Science.

Daya is driven by a vision for sustainability and a plastic-free environment. Beyond her professional endeavors, she actively champions eco-friendly initiatives. She is also deeply committed to spending quality time with her family and cherishes moments with her beloved pet.

Contact: ds5796@nyu.edu

Baraka Binishaq

Administrative Assistant

Baraka graduated from Zayed University Abu Dhabi with a bachelor’s degree of Science in Psychology in 2021. Baraka has multidisciplinary experience with proven administrative capabilities, research skills, medical interpretation, school counseling, and public policy that leverage into her administrative assistant role at the NYUAD Center for Brain and Health.

Contact: bb3806@nyu.edu

Caterina Pedersini

Former Postdoctoral Scholar

Caterina holds a Ph.D. degree in Psychological and Psychiatric Sciences from the University of Verona in Italy and a master’s degree in Clinical, Developmental Psychology and Neuropsychology from University Bicocca in Milano. She joined the lab as a post-doctoral associate in September 2020. Caterina’s research involves two main lines of investigation: 1) neuroplasticity after sight-recovery in humans, using diffusion MRI data and tractography of white matter pathways, and 2) idiosyncratic spatial heterogeneities in visual perception across the visual field. In her research, she combines computational modeling of behavior, psychophysics, and neuroimaging techniques to study the neural activity supporting behaviors. Her main interests are brain plasticity in healthy and damaged brains (structural and functional connectivity), computational modeling of brain activity, and neural correlates of intra- and inter-individual variability in the representation of visual stimuli across locations, which may indicate a dissociation between visual sensation and perception.

Contact: caterina.pedersini@nyu.edu

Lowell Thompson

Former PhD Student

Lowell graduated from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse with a bachelor’s degree of Arts in Psychology in 2014. He is now a sixth-year Ph.D. student in the Neuroscience Training Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Lowell is jointly advised by Prof. Bas Rokers and Prof. Ari Rosenberg at UW-Madison. His research focuses on revealing the hierarchical cortical circuits that transform two-dimensional (2D) retinal motion signals into representations of 3D object-motion by translating perceptual studies in human observers into neurophysiological experiments in non-human primates. He is currently a Postdoctoral researcher with Josh Gold at the University of Pennsylvania.

Contact: lwthompson@wisc.edu

Hannah Chu

Former Postgraduate Research Fellow 

Hannah graduated from New York University Abu Dhabi in 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology specializing in Brain and Cognitive Science. She joined the lab as a capstone student under the supervision of Professor Bas Rokers and Professor Kartik Sreenivasan and was a Post-Graduation Research Fellow studying the neural mechanisms underlying perceptual filling-in caused by artificial scotomas in the motion domain and its implications for working memory. She is currently a PhD student in the Global Psychology Ph.D. program at NYU.

Contact: wkc267@nyu.edu 

Omnia Hassanin

Former Lab Manager and Research Assistant

Omnia has a master’s degree of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the American University of Sharjah. She received her bachelor’s degree of Science in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Computer Engineering from Abu Dhabi University, in 2018. Omnia has multidisciplinary experience in medical signal and image processing, with a common thread involving pattern recognition and artificial intelligence. Her research focuses on developing computational and machine learning frameworks to model the neural and physiological mechanisms underlying health and disease states. She is currently a PhD student at the Vilcek Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

Contact: omnia.hassanin@nyu.edu

Rawand Benour

Former Research Assistant

Rawand Benour holds an MSc in Genomic Medicine from King’s College London/St George’s University of London and a BSc in Biology from the University of Calgary. Previously, Rawand has been involved in research specializing in the genetics of meningioma across several severities. Rawand has also focused on exploring the genetic landscape of Middle Eastern populations, specifically within the realm of identification of genetic markers and isolation of potential drug targets. Currently, her research involvement is concentrated towards identifying the genetic basis of health disparities largely present within the UAE population and the linkage to phenotypic outcomes through neuroimaging. 

Contact: rb5675@nyu.edu

Eliza Mic

Former Research Assistant

Eliza graduated from New York University Abu Dhabi in 2021, receiving a bachelor’s degree in Biology with a specialty in Brain and Cognitive Sciences and a minor in Psychology. In the past, she has done research in the area of neurohaptics using EEG to observe the brain activity that occurs during tactile and thermal stimulation. Her current research focuses on understanding the neural basis that causes discrepancies between visual perception and sensation. She is currently a Research Management Specialist at the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in Abu Dhabi. 

Contact: eam719@nyu.edu