Katrin Amunts

“To my mind diversity and the inclusion of many different perspectives is fundamentally important, especially in a project like the HBP. We have to improve in its Gender Balance, just as we need to have a good balance of young people and older people, people from different cultures and disciplines. As Scientific Research Director I am glad that we are actively working on this issue.”

In 2016 Katrin Amunts became Chair of the HBP Science and Infrastructure Board (SIB) and Scientific Research Director.

Katrin Amunts graduated in 1987 in medicine and biophysics. She did her PhD in medicine and her postdoctoral work in the Cécile and Otto Vogt Institute for Brain Research at Düsseldorf University, Germany. In 1999, she set up a new research unit for Brain Mapping in the Research Centre Jülich. In 2004, she became a Professor for Structural-Functional Brain Mapping, and in 2008 full Professor at the Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics at RWTH Aachen University. Since 2013, she is Professor for Brain Research and director of the C. and O. Vogt Institute for Brain Research, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf and director of the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), Research Centre Jülich. Her research interest is to develop a three-dimensional atlas of the human brain that integrates the different levels of brain organisation across the scales as tool to better understand human brain organisation.

Katrin Amunts is member and Vice-Chair of the German Ethics Council. She is member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech) and the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts. She also serves on the editorial board of Brain Structure and Function, is the speaker of the German Helmholtz Association programme Decoding the Human Brain. Since 2017 she is Co-Speaker of the newly established Max Planck School of Cognition.

 

Mathew Birdsall Abrams

Mathew Birdsall Abrams is Director of Science and Training at the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF, Sweden), an organization dedicated to developing collaborative neuroinformatics infrastructure and standards, as well as promoting the sharing of data and computing resources to the international research community. Since 2012, Mathew has worked with an international group of scientists developing standards, data models, and infrastructure that support neuroimaging, electrophysiology, modeling, and the digital brain atlasing communities. Before joining INCF, Mathew was a researcher in the Department of Neuroscience at Karolinska Institute, Sweden, where his research involved the use of rodent models of traumatic spinal cord injury. He did both his Master and his PhD in Neuroscience at Tulane University, USA. In the HBP, he is a Task Leader in WP4, where he is responsible for development of Knowledge Space and member of the ontology engineering team.

 

Sacha van Albada

Sacha van Albada is Deputy Leader of WP3, Junior Professor for Computational Neuroanatomy at the University of Cologne, and leader of the group "Theoretical Neuroanatomy" at Research Center Jülich, Germany. She obtained a Bachelor of Science degree from University College Utrecht, the Netherlands, followed by a Master's in Theoretical Physics from Utrecht University, and a PhD at the School of Physics at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her group combines anatomical and physiological data from a wide range of sources to build neural network models of mammalian cerebral cortex. The aim is to understand relationships between cortical structure and dynamics, and to provide models that serve as platforms for further refinement and for incorporating cortical function.

 

Andrea Alonso-Allende

Andrea Alonso-Allende did her Business and Management Degree at Complutense University of Madrid and her Master’s Degree in Analysis of International Economic Relations at Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid, Spain. She also studied at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria. Before joining the HBP, she worked as special markets Analyst at Lladro, United States, and as Project Coordinator and Program Manager at the Foundation Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain. In 2015, she joined the HBP as Project Manager and currently works for the Project Coordination Office in WP7 at the EBRAINS AISBL. She holds several certifications in project management, including PRINCE2, AgilePgM and MSP.

 

Sylvia Aßlaber

Sylvia Aßlaber did her Bachelor’s Degrees in Sociology and in Architecture as well as her Master’s Degree in Gender, Culture and Social Change at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Her areas of expertise are Event promotion and on-site support, Public Relations, Social Media & Website and Market Research. She joined the HBP in 2019 and works now as Project Assistant for the HBP Education Programme Team in WP8, where she is responsible for the support of the organisation and execution of educational and outreach activities, media design, and more.

 

Estelle Bonin

Estelle Bonin is part of WP2, working at the Coma Science Group, GIGA Consciousness, of the University of Liège, Belgium. She did her Bachelor’s Degree in Cellular Biology and Physiology as well as her Master’s Degree in Neuropsychology and Clinical Neurosciences at the Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse, France. Currently, she is doing a joint PhD at in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Liège and the KU Leuven, where she is part of the Research Group Experimental ORL. Her research focuses on consciousness, aiming to improve the medical care and understanding of disorders of consciousness following an acute injury such as coma, "vegetative"/unresponsive wakefulness, minimally conscious or locked-in syndromes.

 

Svenja Caspers

Svenja Caspers is Deputy Leader of WP1. She studied and graduated in Medicine, Business Studies and Economics. After her MD thesis, she worked as a postdoc in the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-2) of the Research Centre Jülich (Germany). In 2012, she received her PhD in Economics from the University of Cologne (Germany) and became team leader of the 1000BRAINS cohort study at the INM-1 of the Research Centre Jülich. She became Associate Professor for Connectivity in the Human Brain in 2015 at Düsseldorf University (Germany) and Connectivity working group leader at INM-1 of the Research Centre Jülich. She is director and full professor for Anatomy of the Institute for Anatomy I at Düsseldorf University. Since 2020, she is also Vice Dean for Teaching and Quality of Studies at the Medical Faculty of the Düsseldorf University. Her research focuses on the combination of postmortem microscopic analyses with in-vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for investigating structure-function-connectivity relationships in higher-order association cortices in the human brain. She is extensively working with large population-based cohort studies, e.g. the German National Cohort, using high-throughput processing pipelines on high-performance computing to particularly study environmental and genetic influences in lifespan trajectories of aging.

 

Benedetta Cecconi

Benedetta Cecconi is part of WP2, working at the Coma Science Group, GIGA Consciousness, of the University of Liège, Belgium, where she is a PhD student. She did her Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy and Bioethics at the University of Bologna, Italy. In October 2019, she graduated her Master’s Degree in Cognitive Science, Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Trento, Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, Italy. As cognitive neuroscientist and philosopher, her multidisciplinary work aims to study the relationship between brain activity and subjective experience. To this end, her research combines neuroimaging at different spatio-temporal scales and phenomenological sampling, benefitting from the complementary information that different levels of analysis provide. She applies these methods in a range of topics including (dis)connectedness and consciousness.

 

Andrew Davison

Andrew Davison is Senior Research Scientist and Neuroinformatics Group Leader at the Department of Integrative and Computational Neuroscience Paris-Saclay Institute of Neuroscience (CNRS/Université Paris-Saclay, France). His main research interests are in large-scale, data-constrained, biologically-detailed modelling of neuronal networks. Andrew completed his Ph.D. in Computational Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge (UK), did a Post-doc at Yale University (USA), then moved to the CNRS (France) where he has now been for 18 years. Among others, he is Associate Editor for Frontiers in Neuroscience since 2011 and Coordinator of the French Node of the INCF since 2017. In the HBP, Andrew is part of WP4, WP5 and WP6, in which he leads the Task for deployment and management of neuromorphic systems.

 

Michele Farisco

Michele Farisco is part of CRB's neuroethics research team. He was appointed Associate Professor of Moral Philosophy in Italy. He holds a degree in Philosophy from University of Naples "L'Orientale", Italy, in 2003, a PhD in "Ethics and Anthropology. History and Foundation" from University of Lecce, Italy, in 2008 and a Master degree in Biolaw from the University of Rome "Lumsa", Italy, in 2009. He spent time on an exchange grant from the European Neuroscience and Society Network within the European Science Foundation joining the Coma Science Group of the University of Liège, Belgium. He is the head of the "Science and society" research unit of Biogem Genetic Research Centre in Ariano Irpino, Italy. He is the author of three books and several articles about posthuman philosophy and philosophical, ethical and legal implications (ELSI) of genetics and neuroscience. Michele is currently working on his second PhD about the neuroscience of disorders of consciousness (from laboratory to clinics). He is part of WP2, WP3 and WP9. His current research focuses on consciousness, Artificial Intelligence, and reciprocal connection. Specifically, in collaboration with empirical scientists from inside and outside the HBP, his research aims at developing a philosophical and ethical framework for the experimental and computational explorations of cognition and consciousness.

 

Javier De Felipe

Javier De Felipe is a research professor at the Instituto Cajal (CSIC) and Director of the Laboratorio Cajal de Circuitos Corticales at UPM. His particular expertise lies in the correlation of electron microscopy data with the synaptic connectivity of neurons previously identified using functional markers, or by intracellular labelling. Another of his principal interest is the analysis of alterations of cortical circuits in epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease and in the study of the history of cortical organization and function. Furthermore, his laboratory is involved in the development of a variety of software tools to classify neuronal cell types and to examine the anatomical design of brain circuits.

 

Johanna Fusseis

Johanna Fusseis did her Bachelor’s Degree in Communications as well as both of her Master’s Degrees in Applied linguistics and in Communications at the University of Salzburg, Austria. Since 2020, she is a certified cultural manager by the German Academy for Management. Before joining the HBP, she worked as Search Engine Optimizer, PR Manager, Marketing Assistant, Marketing and Communication Manager as well as Project Manager in the private sector. In 2020, Johanna joined the HBP as Project Manager for the HBP Education Programme Team in WP8.

 

Peter Gierow

Peter Gierow obtained his PhD in biochemistry at Lund University, Sweden in 1988. He was then a post-doctoral fellow at Department of Physiology & Biophysics and at Department of Ophthalmology, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine (USC), Los Angeles, USA, followed by a position as Assistant Professor at Department of Cell & Neurobiology, USC. He was a Senior Lecturer at University of Kalmar, Sweden from 1995 to 2008, before becoming Professor of Biochemistry at the same university, now renamed as Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden. His research interests are in the field of tear film and lacrimal gland physiology, as well as dry eye syndromes. He is currently President of European Charter of the American Academy of Optometry. Since 2019, he contributes to the HBP, where he is part of WP4.

 

Karin Grasenick

Karin Grasenick (convelop cooperative knowledge design gmbh, www.convelop.at)
Karin graduated in Computer Science and Biomedical Engineering. Her thesis on innovative non-invasive techniques to measure stroke volume led to a growing interest in inter- and transdisciplinary research, diversity in research content and equal opportunities in science. She lectures, coaches and supports teams, universities and international projects in gender mainstreaming, diversity and change management. In HBP, she actively supports the recognition of diversity as a success factor for research and innovation. Together with her team she provides tools and techniques for researchers accordingly.

 

Camilla Hagen Blixhavn

Camilla Hagen Blixhavn is a researcher and PhD candidate in Neuroinformatics at the University of Oslo, Norway. She is especially involved in atlas integration of rodent brain research data in the Human Brain Project and thus part of WP4, responsible for Data Curation. She couples her experience from organizational and creative leadership positions together with her studies in psychology, biology, didactics and neuroscience, and continues to strategize towards the needs of researchers in science and health. Camilla did her Bachelor’s degree in Cell and Molecular biology as well as her Master’s degree in Neuroscience at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. In the HBP, she is Student Ambassador and collaborates on various matters across the Student community of the HBP.

 

Björn Kindler

 

Mira Marcus-Kalish

Mira Marcus-Kalish is part of WP1 and WP8 and is the Director of International Research Collaborations at Tel Aviv University. Her main areas of interest are mathematical modelling, converging technologies and data mining. She holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, where she developed one of the first computerized systems for electrocardiogram (ECG) diagnosis. She completed her postdoctoral training at Harvard University, the MBCRR (Molecular Biology Computer Research and Resource) laboratory and at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. She was and is involved in many EU projects, including NanoAthero, GLAM, ENATRANS and the HBP focusing on disease signature identification and big vs small data analysis towards reliable, personalized and precise medicine for the benefit of society. Dr. Kalish was involved at the private sector, as well, working for IBM, Apple, NCR, etc. She took an active part in Cross Disciplinary research and Converging Technologies including the EU-US Wtec-NBIC2 and was one of the founders of the "Dead Sea Research Institute for life in extreme conditions" and the Tel Aviv University "Healthy Aging" Initiative.

 

Annemieke Michels

Annemieke Michels works as Senior Scientific Editor in WP7 for the Project Coordination Office at the EBRAINS AISBL. She is part of the HBP since 2018. Her main tasks in the HBP are coordination of the Deliverable process, editing and advising of a range of documents, such as Deliverables, Amendments, Reports and Call texts. She has a Master’s Degree in Medical Biology from Utrecht University, and a PhD in Medical Sciences from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Her main research fields were protein kinases and signalling, transcription, and protein folding. Before joining the HBP, she worked as a Postdoc at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris, France, as Biochemist/Molecular Biologist at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland and as Grant Writer at the Policlinique Médicale Universitaire (PMU) de Lausanne, Switzerland.

 

Abigail Morrison

Abigail Morrison is professor of Computer Science at RWTH Aachen, Germany and group leader of “Computation in Neural Circuits” at INM-6/IAS-6, Research Centre Jülich, Germany. She is also scientific lead of the “Simulation Laboratory Neuroscience” at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre. In the HBP, she leads the Task on Spiking network level description in WP5. She holds a Master’s Degree in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh, UK and received her PhD in computational neuroscience in 2006 from the University of Freiburg, Germany. Between 2006 and 2009 she was a scientific researcher at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Wako-Shi, Japan; she subsequently held a junior professorship at the University of Freiburg, Germany, as well as a group leadership at the Bernstein Center Freiburg from 2009 to 2012, followed by a full professorship until 2020 in the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany. Her research interests include learning, representation and computation in spiking neural networks, dynamics and computation in neurodegenerative diseases, and high-performance simulation technology.

 

Lars Muckli

Lars Muckli is Task Leader in WP2 and Professor of Visual and Cognitive Neurosciences and Director of functional MRI at the University of Glasgow, UK. He studied Psychology and Cognitive Science at the Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany. In 1997, he did his diploma degree in Psychology (Master of Science in Psychology) at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research and University of Giessen. In 2002, he did his Ph.D. (Neurophysiology/Neurocognition) at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research and the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands, for which he was awarded with highest honours. He was project group leader of the functional magnetic resonance imaging group at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research. He was also PI at the Brain Imaging Centre in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Since 2015, he is Co-chair of 7T-MRI at the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences (MVLS) of the University of Glasgow, UK.

His research focuses on cortical feedback and predictive coding in the visual cortex, using functional brain imaging (fMRI, TMS, EEG) to investigate how the brain constructs internal models and feeds information back to primary visual cortex, V1. His lab investigates visual illusions, and contextual processing in non-feedforward stimulated parts of V1.

 

Oluyinka Oyeniji

Oluyinka "Olu" Oyeniji is a PhD Student within WP9 of the HBP in the Center for Computing and Social Responsibility, De Montfort University in Leicester, UK. His research is focused on "Framing neuro-ethics and cultural influences". He has a background in Law and Ethics of Emerging Technologies. He is optimistic that the global nature of neuroscience research may extend beyond boundaries, guaranteeing the inclusion of peoples' and identifying with peculiar cultural identities.

 

Pilar F. Romero

Pilar F. Romero is part of WP1, working at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) as Scientific Project Manager at Laboratorio Cajal de Circuitos Corticales (CCCL). After completing her PhD in Biology, she moved into science management, collaborating on the preparation and running of research projects at national, European and international levels. She is in charge of the RTD Management Unit at CCCL and her main responsibilities include scientific project and data management as well as the coordination of new proposals and actions to optimize research applications and funding activities.

 

Arleen Salles

Arleen Salles, PhD. M.A. is a Senior Researcher in the Neuroethics and Philosophy Group at the Centre for Research and Bioethics (CRB) of Uppsala University, and a task leader and research collaborator in the Ethics and Society Work Package (WP9) of the Human Brain Project. She is  also  board member of the International Neuroethics Society and serves as a member of the International Brain Initiative’s Neuroethics Workgroup. Salles is Director of the Neuroethics Program of Centro de Investigaciones Filosoficas in Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

 

Julia Trattnig

Julia Trattnig did her Bachelor’s degrees in Roman languages and in Political science at the University of Vienna, Austria. Following a study visit to the University of Avignon, France, she then obtained her Master’s degrees in Roman languages and Gender Studies at the University of Graz, Austria. She worked in the media sector and for different NGOs, focusing on feminist education, culture and politics as well as anti-discrimination. Since 2020, she is working as consultant for convelop and has as such joined WP9 of the HBP in the Task for Gender Mainstreaming and Diversity Management. Together with Karin Grasenick, she co-coordinates the Diversity and Equal Opportunities Committee, adding her background knowledge on gender, diversity, equality policy and content analysis.

 

Benjamin Weyers

Benjamin Weyers is working at the University Trier, Germany, as Assistant Professor for Practical Informatics leading the Human-Computer Interaction group. From Oct. 2013 until Nov. 2018, he worked as post doc in the Virtual Reality Group at RWTH Aachen University, Germany. His research interests include formal methods in human-computer interaction, especially the use of Petri net-based description concepts and graph transformation systems for modeling flexible and adaptable user interfaces, virtual reality, interactive data analysis and information visualization, collaborative and learning systems, as well as ambient intelligent systems. Benjamin studied Applied Computer Science at University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany and reached in 2008 the diploma degree (Dipl.-Inform.). In December 2011, he finished his PhD studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen and stayed there until September 2013 as research associate and lecturer. Since March 2020, he is Task Leader for the development of a Visualisation framework in WP5 of HBP and leads the software metadata curation for the EBRAINS Knowledge Graph.