Lab

Tim obtained his PhD in Cognitive Science (Dr. rer. nat.) working towards a better understanding of visual processing in humans by combining machine learning and cognitive neuroscience (supervised by Peter König and Frank Tong). After a few years at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit of the University of Cambridge, where he worked with Nikolaus Kriegeskorte, he started his own lab at the Donders (Radboud University). In 2022, he became Full Professor for Machine Learning at the Institute of Cognitive Science (University of Osnabrück). For more details, see Tim’s CV here.

Adrien studied neuroscience and physics at EPFL, and completed his Ph.D. in Neuroscience there under the supervision of Michael Herzog. His research focuses on developing new artificial network architectures and objectives to study visual processing and, more broadly, to understand how and when different computational properties emerge. He also works on theoretical issues in consciousness science.

Sushrut studied physics at IIT Bombay (India) and cognitive neuroscience at CIMeC (Italy). He completed his Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience at the Donders Institute (Netherlands). His work involved neuroimaging and normative modeling with neural networks. Now a postdoc, he will focus on building and studying (recurrent) neural networks that can flexibly perform computations and learn continually.

Rowan studied Psychology, Philosophy and Cognitive Neuroscience at the Radboud University Nijmegen/Donders Institute, specialising in philosophy of mind and language and perception, action and control. He is finalising his PhD on the neurobiology of reference comprehension at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. His current aim is to apply lessons from more symbolic approaches found in philosophy, logic and linguistics to deep learning approaches of vision neuroscience.

Alexander studied Cognitive Science as an undergraduate in Osnabrück before moving to Maastricht University for an MSc in Artificial Intelligence. There he also completed his PhD under the supervision of Rainer Goebel, focusing on the computational and neural basis of visual saliency. Now a Postdoc, he will work on deep neural network models of eye movements that align with the computations in the human visual system.

Emer studied Physical Natural Sciences as an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge before moving to the University of York for an MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience. She is now a PhD student based at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, co-supervised by Tim Kietzmann (University of Osnabrück) and Matt Lambon Ralph (Cambridge). She is interested in using artificial neural networks as a modelling framework for the human visual ventral stream in health and disease.

Abdullahi completed his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Artificial Intelligence specializing in neural computation. He is interested in the biophysical constraints and environmental pressures that drive organization and information processing in the visual cortex. He aims to develop biologically-plausible recurrent neural network models that can solve visual problems in ecologically valid environments. Abdullahi is co-supervised by Tim Kietzmann (University of Osnabrück) and Marcel van Gerven (Donders)

Philip studied Psychology in Osnabrück and Göttingen specializing in visual psychophysics and cognitive neuroscience. After a stay at ENS Paris he joined our lab for his master thesis and now for his PhD project. His research focuses on the neuro-computational mechanisms underlying the extraction of visual information within and across multiple fixations. Philip is co-supervised by Tim Kietzmann and Peter König (University of Osnabrück).

Zejin previously specialized in computer vision in the context of vehicle engineering at Hunan University, China. His research in the lab focuses on conditions of map formation in non-convolutional neural network models, and reinforcement learning in virtual environments. Zejin is jointly supervised by Tim Kietzmann (University of Osnabrück) and Radoslaw Martin Cichy (Free University Berlin).

Daniel studied Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Neuroscience at Radboud University.
During his master’s he joined the lab for his thesis, studying functional alignment using deep neural networks.
Now a PhD student, he is interested in researching representations in biological and artificial neural networks and exploring artificial neural networks’ properties that can support continual learning.

Victoria completed her Master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence at the Radboud University with a specialisation in cognitive computing and a special interest in (neuro-)philosophy. Her work focuses on understanding the neural mechanisms and developmental factors that enable efficient information processing in organisms using artificial neural networks.

Viktoria studied Computational Linguistics in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, as an undergraduate. For her master’s she moved to Moscow, Russia, to study cognitive science. During her master’s and one year after, she used to work with natural language processing in the industry. She is now a PhD student at the University of Osnabrück, being co-supervised by Gordon Pipa and Tim Kietzmann. Her main project is devoted to spiking networks and synchronization of neuron firings. She is also interested in neuromorphic computing and using spiking networks for continual learning.

Carmen studied psychology (B.Sc.) and cognitive science (M.Sc.) at the University of Amsterdam and the the University of Osnabrück, specialising cognitive computational neuroscience. She joined the lab for her master’s thesis, investigating the dynamic integration of visual semantics.
As a PhD student, she continues her work on visual semantics and investigate how humans dynamically extract and integrate visual information to obtain a semantic understanding by making use of artificial neural networks.

Varun studied theoretical physics at the University of Manchester and completed his PhD at the Universität Rostock, specializing in intense laser-atom interactions. He then worked as a postdoc at Humboldt University in Berlin and the Institut Curie in France before founding a ML-centred non-profit in France aimed at improving research code. His current goal is to provide computational and software engineering support in the lab.