ISBFC 2025

Prof. Erez Simony is an Associate Professor of Brain Sciences in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Holon Institute of Technology (HIT) and a Scientific Advisor at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

His lab investigates the neurocognitive representations of the human brain during rich, naturalistic stimulation—such as movies and stories—using machine learning to analyze fMRI and ECoG recordings. The lab’s research aims to understand how these stimuli are transformed into short- and long-term memories in both healthy and impaired individuals, and how memory traces are represented at the level of local brain regions as well as through large-scale neural communication across brain networks.

Prof. Simony holds a Ph.D. in Neurobiology from the Weizmann Institute of Science, an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering, and dual B.Sc. degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering from the Technion. As a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University, he specialized in large-scale brain network dynamics during naturalistic stimulation, employing neuroimaging and computational approaches.

Associate Professor – Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Holon Institute of Science (HIT), Israel.

Scientific Advisor – Department of Brain Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel.

Dr. Inbal Maidan is a distinguished neuroscientist specializing in the investigation of neural mechanisms underlying motor and cognitive functions in neurological disorders, with a primary focus on Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy. Her research aims to identify and quantify alterations in brain mechanisms as biomarkers for disease risk, progression, and treatment effects.

Employing a multi-modal approach, Dr. Maidan combines motor-cognitive assessments with advanced neuroimaging techniques (fMRI, fNIRS) and electrophysiology methods (EEG, TMS). She has extensive experience in measuring brain activation during rest, motor, and cognitive tasks, investigating their correlation to performance under various levels of difficulty, including dual-task conditions.

Dr. Maidan’s expertise extends to advanced EEG analyses, which she utilizes to reveal sensitive biomarkers for disease diagnosis, progression, and intervention efficacy. While her primary focus has been on Parkinson’s disease and aging, she has recently expanded her research to include epilepsy, addressing critical unmet needs in this field.

As Director of the Brain Electrophysiology & Epilepsy Lab at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Dr. Maidan has made significant contributions to neurology and neuroscience. Her prolific research career is evidenced by 69 publications in high-impact areas over the past decade, solidifying her position as a leading expert in the field.

Director – Brain Electrophysiology & Epilepsy Lab, Neurology Institute, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Israel

Senior Lecturer – Faculty of Medical & Health Sciences, Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Professor Hiromu Sakai awarded Ph.D. in Social Science from University of California, Irvine. Since then, he worked as a professor in Hiroshima University and Waseda University. His current research focuses on neural representation and processing of language, inference, and thought using neuroimaging technologies such as MEG, ECoG, fMRI and machine learning data processing algorithm.

His representative works are:

Zhao, Z. A., Sakai, H., & Luo, Y. (2025). “Simpler is better”: Japanese children’s learning of case-markers in transitive sentences. Language Learning and Development, 1–23.
doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2025.2462017

Nakamura, M., Momma, S., Sakai, H., & Phillips, C. (2024). Task and Timing Effects in Argument Role Sensitivity: Evidence From Production, EEG, and Computational Modeling, Cognitive Science 12, e70023.
doi.org/10.1111/cogs.70023

Tanaka, K., Tsukahara, A., Miyanaga, H., Tsunematsu, S., Kato, T., Matsubara, Y., & Sakai, H. (2024). Superconducting Self-Shielded and Zero-Boil-Off Magnetoencephalogram Systems: A Dry Phantom Evaluation, Sensors 24(18), 6044.
doi.org/10.3390/s24186044

Lai, Y.-Y., Sakai, H., & Makuuchi, M. (2023). Neural underpinnings of processing combinatorial unstated meaning and the influence of individual cognitive style, Cerebral Cortex 33(18), 10013-10027.
doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhad261

Ito, A., & Sakai, H. (2021). Everyday language exposure shapes prediction of specific words in listening comprehension: A visual world eye-tracking study, Frontiers in Psychology 12, 607474.
doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.607474

Professor – Department of Life Science and Medical Bioscience, Graduate School of Advanced Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

Director – Center for English Language Education for Science and Engineering (CELESE), Faculty of Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

Researcher (Joint Appointment) – Waseda Institute for Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

Dr. Abigail Livny-Ezer, Director of the C.BIRD Center- Clinical Brain Imaging R&D Center, and an assistant professor at the Imaging Department and Sagol Neuroscience School, Tel Aviv University.

Dr. Abigail Livny-Ezer is a neuroscientist, expert in neuroimaging. Following her Master’s degree in clinical neuropsychology studies at the Hebrew University, Dr. Livny-Ezer specialized during her PhD studies in MRI brain imaging at the School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University. She is a member of the first cohort of esteemed TELEM program for “Excellency & Leadership in research” at the Sheba Medical Center.

Dr. Livny-Ezer leads multidisciplinary research that focuses on brain reorganization in various neuro-pathologies, aiming to uncover mechanisms underlying neuroplasticity and disease progression. Specifically, she focuses on how network disruptions both in structural and functional connectivity affect clinical and cognitive outcome. In addition, her neuroimaging center provides clinical services of brain-mapping for precision in several neurosurgical procedures. Recently, she founded 2 startup companies, both integrating advanced neuroimaging and AI: CoPilotMD, serves as a second set of eyes for the neuro-endovascular surgeon in real-time; and Inkognito, empowers diagnostics and treatment precision by fingerprinting brain disorders.

Director – C.BIRD-Clinical Brain Imaging R&D Center, Sheba Medical Center, Ramat Gan, Israel

Researcher – Faculty of Medical & Health Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

Researcher – Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

Co-Founder & CSO – CoPilotMD, Tel Aviv, Israel

Professor Abraham (Avi) Goldstein is a cognitive neuroscientist at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, where he serves as a Full Professor in the Department of Psychology. He also leads the MEG Lab at the Leslie and Susan Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, overseeing the country’s sole magnetoencephalography (MEG) facility.

Prof. Goldstein completed his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology at Bar-Ilan University and honed his expertise in cognitive electrophysiology and event-related brain potentials during a post-doctoral fellowship at the Beckman Institute and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

His main research interest is in using non-invasive electromagnetic measures (EEG/MEG) recordings of brain activity in order to understand how people perform cognitive operations such as reading and comprehending, perceiving, representing and remembering external events. Among his research topics are functional hemispheric dynamics in language comprehension and thinking, and brain responses to emotionally or motivationally charged stimuli. He has also conducted studies with clinical populations such as schizophrenia, autism and PTSD.

His latest research focuses on social aspects of cognitive neural processing, such as the MEG correlates of pain empathy and intergroup biases. Recent studies in his lab have investigated the role of communicators/speakers as alignment agents and the factors that affect audience synchronization.

Professor – Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

Professor – Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

Dr. Balberg’s research focuses on using near infrared light (NIRS) to study the brain. She is investigating the use of NIRS to identify epileptic activity in patients with epilepsy, connectivity patterns in patients suffering from depression and hemodynamic activity is subjects with cochlear implants. Dr. Balberg is also developing new technologies for monitoring blood flow to the brain and imaging the brain using acousto-optics. Dr. Balberg received a Ph.D. in Neural Computation from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and was a postdoctoral Beckman Fellow at the University of Illinois, at Urbana- Champaign. She joined HIT in 2015, after founding a medical device start-up that developed a non-invasive brain monitor (Ornim Medical Ltd.). She is the inventor of more than 20 WW patents, and authored numerous publications in biomedical optics in leading journals and books. Dr. Balberg works in collaboration with researchers at Tufts University and NYU in the US, The Hebrew University and Hadassah Medical Center, Tel Aviv University and Souraski Medical Center, Sheba Medical Center and Waseda University in Japan.

Senior Lecturer – Faculty of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Holon Institute of Technology, Holon, Israel

Prof. Anat Mirelman, PhD is a full professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and Sagol School of Neuroscience at Tel Aviv University and is the director of the Laboratory for Early Markers of neurodegeneration (LEMON) at the Tel Aviv Medical Center (TLVMC). In her research she is privileged to address question on motor and cognitive function in ageing and disease and mechanisms of neurodegeneration. In the past 15 years, Prof. Mirelman has lead the ‘Genetics in Parkinson’s disease Project’ at TLVMC which aims to identify early markers that could indicate disease processes in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and individuals at risk due to genetic mutations associated with PD. Prof. Mirelman’s specific interest is in quantitative, objective measures obtained from wearable sensors and digital technology, and their utility in identifying markers of disease and disease progression. To date, the cohort includes more than 3000 participants and is considered one of the largest genetic PD cohorts in the world. Prof Mirelman and her team have published over 150 papers on markers of neurodegeneration and disease progression. LEMON is home to software engineers, neurologists, computational analyst research assistants and several MSc and PhD students.

Director – Laboratory for Early Markers of Neurodegeneration (LEMON), Neurological Institute, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel

Professor – Sagol School for Neuroscience and Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

Alex Huth is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley in the departments of neuroscience and statistics.

His lab uses natural language stimuli and fMRI to study language processing in human cortex in work funded by the Burroughs Wellcome Foundation, Sloan Foundation, Whitehall Foundation, NIH, and others.

Before joining the Berkeley faculty, Alex did his PhD and postdoc in Jack Gallant’s laboratory, where he developed novel methods for mapping semantic representations of visual and linguistic stimuli in human cortex, and then a professor at UT Austin, where his lab developed new methods for machine learning in neuroscience.

Tang, Jerry and LeBel, Amanda and Jain, Shailee and Huth, Alexander G (2023). Semantic reconstruction of continuous language from non-invasive brain recordings. Nature Neuroscience.
doi: 10.1038/s41593-023-01304-9

Jain, Shailee and Vo, Vy A. and Wehbe, Leila and Huth, Alexander G. (2023). Computational Language Modeling and the Promise of in Silico Experimentation. Neurobiology of Language.
doi: 10.1162/nol_a_00101

Antonello, Richard and Huth, Alexander (2023). Predictive Coding or Just Feature Discovery? An Alternative Account of Why Language Models Fit Brain Data. Neurobiology of Language.
doi: 10.1162/nol_a_00087

Huth, Alexander G and de Heer, Wendy A and Griffiths, Thomas L and Theunissen, Frederic E and Gallant, Jack L (2016). Natural speech reveals the semantic maps that tile human cerebral cortex. Nature.
doi: 10.1038/nature17637

Assistant Professor – Department of Neuroscience, University of California, Berkeley

Assistant Professor – Department of Statistics, University of California, Berkeley

Dr. Liberty Hamilton’s research is focused on how the brain transforms sounds into meaningful speech using a combination of intracranial recordings, computational modeling, and behavior. She completed her Ph.D. in neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley and her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco Center for Integrative Neuroscience and Department of Neurosurgery. To investigate how speech develops in the brain at high spatiotemporal resolution, she collaborates with neurosurgeons and epileptologists at Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin, TX, and Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, TX. Her lab also uses noninvasive EEG in healthy populations to understand complex sound processing during naturalistic speech perception and production. Dr. Hamilton is a tenured Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and holds joint appointments in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and the Department of Neurology at Dell Medical School. She also holds an Adjunct Assistant Professor appointment in the Department of Neurosurgery at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX. Her work is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs, and the Coleman Fung Foundation.

Associate Professor – Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, United States

Associate Professor – Department of Neurology, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, United States

Rieko Osu received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Kyoto University in 1996. She subsequently worked as a researcher at ERATO, JST. In 2001, she joined ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, initially as a researcher and later as Head of the Department of Motor Control and Rehabilitation.

In 2015, she became Director of Consumer Neuroscience at The Nielsen Company Japan. Since 2017, she has been a professor in the Faculty of Human Sciences at Waseda University.

Her research interests include motor control and learning, neuro-rehabilitation, neuroimaging, and cognitive neuroscience, with a recent focus on neurodevelopmental disorders.

Professor – Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

Shinji Nishimoto’s research focuses on quantitative understanding of visual and cognitive processing in the brain. He addresses this via modeling and decoding of brain activity evoked under naturalistic conditions.

In our daily life we receive a massive stream of complex and dynamic visual inputs. Our brain processes those inputs to understand the world. This is not a trivial process: the human brain contains several dozens of hierarchically organized cortical areas that process the visual inputs, and those areas cover around one fourth of our entire cortex. Studying how the visual system works gives us a unique opportunity to reveal how the brain analyzes these complex inputs through its functional hierarchy.

Professor Nishimoto approach this issue via building computational models that can predict brain activity evoked under arbitrary naturalistic conditions. By building such models, we aim to understand the underlying internal representation, cortical mapping, and ultimately the general rules in cortical processing. Currently we use fMRI as our main tool to record human brain activity, but we are also working with data from single-unit recordings. A quantitative understanding of the brain is crucial in quantitative assessment on how the brain may differ across subjects, different experiences, cognitive conditions, or pathological status. We are to provide a basis for such quantitative assessment for potential future diagnosis. Such models can also be a basis for brain machine interfaces or neuroprosthetics.

Professor – Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University

Research Manager – Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), National Institute of Information and Communications Technology