Lucas C. Parra, PhD

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Office hour: Wed 2pm - 3pm at CDI-3.318. Please book time on my Calendar before coming.

Lucas C. Parra is Harold Shames Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the City College of New York (CCNY) and Affiliate Member of Radiology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (2020-). He received his Ph.D. in Physics from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in 1996 with research in the area of machine learning under the guidance of Gustavo Deco. Prior to joining CCNY he worked on medical imaging at Siemens Corporate Research (1995-1997) and acoustic signal processing at Sarnoff Corporation (1997-2003).

Research Associates

Jens Madsen, PhD

Personal page | Google Scholar
E-mail: jmadsen[at]ccny.cuny.edu

Jens is currently working on investigating the connection between attention and education using electro-encephalography.

Postdocs

Osvaldo Velarde, PhD

Osvaldo is working on the design, implementation and evaluation of machine learning techniques for the analysis of medical images.

Oumaima Benali, MD

Oumaima is investigating tDCS in relation to its effect on motor recovery in regards to synaptic efficacy.

Lukas Hirsch, PhD

Lukas works in computer vision on biomedical images. He earned his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from CCNY in September 2023.

Vinay Raghavan, PhD

Vinay is investigating navigation and novelty in naturalistic settings with EEG. He completed his PhD in electrical engineering from Columbia University in December 2023.

Ali Ahmadalipour, PhD

Ali joined the lab in September 2024 and will be working on the project about the effects of tDCS on brain and behavior, in collaboration with the lab of Professor John Martin in the CUNY School of Medicine.

Ph.D. students

Gavin Hsu (BME)

Gavin studies the functional effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in humans.

Melanie Adler (BME)

E-mail: madler@itba.edu.ar

Melanie joined the lab in August 2022 and will be working on our NSF-funded project that studies remote video-based instruction.

Nicholas Leotta (BME)

E-mail: nleotta000@citymail.cuny.edu

Nicholas joined the lab in August 2022 and will be working on our Machine learning for risk-adjusted breast screening with MRI project.

Aimar Silvan Ortubay (BME)

Aimar joined the lab in August 2023.

Zhenous Hadi Jafari (BME)

Zhenous joined the lab in September 2023.

Sam Tran (BME)

Sam joined the lab on August 2024 and will be working on the project that studies the Interaction of Motor Learning with Transcranial Direct Current.

Research Assistant

Andrew Birnbaum

Andrew joined the lab in May 2023 and is working on developing neural networks and deep learning models in DeepLabCut and ROAST.

Administrative staff

Brian Avila Klein

Office Phone: (212) 650-8426
E-mail: brian@ccny.cuny.edu

As the Administrative Specialist of the Neural Engineering lab, Brian interprets general CUNY policies and administrative regulations; prepares and manages our research budgets, contracts, IRB and IACUC protocols, and is in charge of personnel and payroll matters, procurement, reimbursements, and event organizing. Moreover, he assists the Department of Biomedical Engineering in providing administrative support to its Doctoral Program.

Collaborators

Mike Milham
Elizabeth Sutton
Hernan Makse (networks)
Ofer Tchernichovski (bird song)
Marom Bikson (transcranial electric stimulation)
Jacek Dmochowski ( EEG and TES)
Paul Sajda (brain computer interfaces)
Anli Liu (Transcranial electric stimulation)

Lab alumni

Postdocs

Yu (Andy) Huang, Ph.D. Biomedical Engineering, CCNY, 9/2016-2/2024
Mahima Sharma, Ph.D. in Neurobiology and Neuroscience, National University of Singapore, 8/2018-9/2021
Agustin Petroni, Ph.D. in Neuroscience, University of Buenos Aires, 10/2014-9/2015
Simon Henin , Ph.D. in Speech and Hearing, CUNY, 7/2014-8/2015
Stefan Haufe, Ph.D. in CS, Technical University Berlin, 11/2013-5/2014
Jacek Dmochowski, PhD. in Telecommunications, Universite du Quebec, 9/2008-6/2013
Justin Rice, Ph.D. in systems control, Delft University, 9/2010-5/2012
Mads Dyrholm, PhD. In CS, TU Denmark, 12/2005-10/2006

Ph.D. Students

Lukas Hirsch, Ph.D. Biomedical Engineering, graduated in 09/2023
Ivan Iotzov, Ph.D. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience, graduated in 09/2023
Forouzan Farahani, Ph.D. Biomedical Engineering, graduated in 06/2023
Maximilian Nentwich, Ph.D. Biomedical Engineering, graduated in 01/2023
Gregory Kronberg, Ph.D. Biomedical Engineering, graduated in 06/2020
Samantha Cohen, Ph.D. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience, graduated in 9/2013-9/2018
Belen Lafon, Ph.D. Biomedical Engineering, graduated in 9/2010-9/2016
Yu (Andy) Huang, Ph.D. Biomedical Engineering, graduated in 9/2010-9/2016
Davide Reato, Ph.D. Biomedical Engineering, graduated in 10/2013
Xiang Zhou, Ph.D., Biomedical Engineering, graduated in 9/2010
Yuzhuo Su, Ph.D., Biomedical Engineering, graduated in 2010
Christoforou Christoforos, Ph.D., Computer Science, graduated 12/2008

Rotation Ph.D. Students

Atanas D. Stankov, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, 09/2019 - 02/2021
Evan Owens, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, 09/2016 - 02/2017