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Students & Post-Docs

Information for prospective students.


Current Post-Doctoral Fellows

Simon Schwab

Simon Schwab is a Visiting Fellow in Neuroimaging Statistics with Prof. Thomas Nichols at the Institute of Digital Healthcare, University of Warwick, funded for the duration of 18 months by the Swiss National Science foundation (SNSF). He is currently working on a new method of effective connectivity and its validation using the state-of-the-art data from the Human Connectome Project. Before joining the University of Warwick he worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Psychiatric Neuroimaging Unit at the University Hospital of Psychiatry in Bern, Switzerland. He received his Ph.D. in neuroscience (2013) and his M.Sc. in psychology and computer science (2008) from the University of Bern.

Silvia Montagna

Silvia Montagna is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Department of Statistics, the University of Warwick, working with Prof. Thomas E. Nichols. Silvia is currently working on developing Bayesian methodology for neuroimaging meta-analysis data as part of Prof. Nichols’ Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship in Basic Biomedical Science, a project titled "Transforming Statistical Methodology for Neuroimaging Meta-Analysis”. Silvia completed her Ph.D. in Statistical Science at Duke University (USA) under the supervision of Prof. Surya T. Tokdar in November 2013. Her Ph.D. thesis was on Bayesian analyses of functional regression, correlated functional data and non-homogenous computer models. Prior to joining Duke, Silvia obtained a Master degree in Economics from Universita’ di Torino (Italy) in July 2009. Her primary research interests are in Bayesian statistics, nonparametric Bayes, functional data analysis, and latent variable methods.

Camille Maumet

Camille Maumet is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Institute of Digital Healthcare at the University of Warwick. She is currently working on developing standard practices for data sharing and meta-analysis in neuroimaging as part of a project titled "Transforming Statistical Methodology for Neuroimaging Meta-Analysis” funded by the Wellcome Trust and led by Prof. Thomas Nichols. Camille received her PhD in computer science from the University of Rennes 1 (France) in 2013 where she focused on the analysis of Arterial Spin Labelling under the supervision of Dr. Christian Barillot and Dr. Pierre Maurel. Before completing her PhD, Camille was a software engineer in image processing for Magnetic Resonance Imaging at Inria (France). In 2008, she received a M.Sc. in Computer Science from INSA Lyon (France). Her primary research interest are in functional neuroimaging and neuroinformatics.



Current PhD Students

Alex Bowring

Alex Bowring is a research assistant in the Institute of Digital Healthcare at the University of Warwick. His primary role is to assist Camille Maumet and Thomas Nichols in developing standard practices for data sharing and meta-analysis in neuroimaging as part of the project "Transforming Statistical Methodology for Neuroimaging Meta-Analysis”. Additionally he is also applying newly developed statistical methods to obtain precise confidence statements about where activaiton occurs in the brain. In 2015 Alex completed his BSc. in Mathematics from the University of Warwick. In summer 2015 he undertook a project entitled “Visualising the brain - Developing viewers of standardised fMRI results”.

Zhangdaihong (Jessie) Liu

Zhangdaihong (Jessie) Liu is a first year PhD student at the CDT of Mathematics for Real-world Systems at University of Warwick. She is jointly supervised by Prof. Thomas Nichols and Prof. Jianfeng Feng. Jessie is currently working on linking brain connectivity, demographics and behaviour using HCP data. She completed the MathSys MSc in 2015. Before University of Warwick, she obtained a MSc in Mathematical Finance at Loughborough University and a BSc in Mathematics at Shandong University, China.

Ruth Harbord

Ruth Harbord is a PhD student with the MOAC Doctoral Training Centre, University of Warwick, supervised by Thomas Nichols. She is continuing the work of Dr. Lilia Costa on effective connectivity using fMRI data and graphical models. She completed the MOAC DTC MSc in Mathematical Biology and Biophysical Chemistry in 2013 and a BSc (Hons) in Physical Science from The Open University in 2011.

Soroosh Afyouni

Soroosh Afyouni is a PhD student at the Institute of Digital Healthcare at the University of Warwick. He is supervised by Professor Thomas Nichols and Professor Theodoros Aravanitis in collaboration with Dr. Andrew Bagshaw at the University of Birmingham. Soroosh is currently working on resting-state functional connectivity of the human brain and its graph theoretical modelling. He graduated in electronic engineering from University of Birmingham in 2012. His MEng dissertation was on Bloch-equation based simulation of spin-echo sequences in magnetic resonance imaging.

Bernd Taschler

Bernd Taschler is a PhD student at the Centre for Complexity Science at the University of Warwick. He is supervised by Dr Tom Nichols in collaboration with Prof. Wilhelm Radue and his group at the Medical Image Analysis Center, University Hospital Basel, Switzerland. Bernd is currently working on modelling of magnetic resonance imaging of multiple sclerosis. He obtained an MSc in complexity science (2013) and before coming to Warwick earned an MSc (Dipl.Ing.) in theoretical physics at Graz University of Technology, Austria, where he worked on strongly correlated many-body systems. He also spent a year as an exchange student at Inha University, South Korea, as a visiting member of the Nuclear Theory Group of Prof. Hyun-Chul Kim.

Habib Ganjgahi

Habib Ganjgahi is a Ph.D student in the Department of Statistics at the University of Warwick. He is jointly supervised by Tom Nichols (Warwick University) and Peter Kochunov (U. Maryland Baltimore) as part of NIH grant on developing inference methods for imaging genetics studies that need to consider the genomic and spatial structure (fMRI, DTI or Structural MRI) data in both independent and pedigree samples. Habib graduated in Mathematics from Ardebil University, Iran. He obtained his MSc in Statistics from Amirkabir Technological University, Tehran, Iran. His dissertation was on Markov model and mixture of Gaussian distribution for multispectral image segmentations under supervision of Dr. Adel Mohammadpour. He then held research assistant positions in Tehran Institute for Advanced Medical Technology and in Tehran Institute for Cognitive Sciences Studies.

Pantelis Samartsidis

Pantelis Samartsidis is a first year Ph.D. student in the Department of Statistics, University of Warwick. He is currently investigating the use of Meta-Analytic tools and Bayesian methods for Neuroimaging data. Prior to coming to Warwick, he studied statistics as an undergraduate in Greece.


Anderson Winkler

Anderson Winkler is a Ph.D. student in the Neurophysics Marie Curie Initial Training Network, linked with GlaxoSmithKline and Maastricht University. He is based at Oxford University's FMRIB lab under the joint supervision of Tom Nichols and Steve Smith (Oxford). Anderson graduated in Medicine at the Brazil Universidade Federal do Paraná in 2005, and obtained a MS in Biomedical Engineering at the Imaging and Electronic Instrumentation Laboratory, Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná in 2007, under the supervision of Prof. Humberto Gamba. Slightly out of order, he started a postdoc with Dr. David Glahn at the Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, where he worked applying and developing methods for neuroimaging. At Yale he worked with a range of data types and techniques, including structural and functional MRI, both using parametric and non-parametric methods, focused on modelling genetic variability.


Previous Ph.D. Students, University of Warwick

Chenyang Tao

Chenyang Tao is a PhD student at Centre for Computational Systems Biology and School of Mathematical Sciences, Fudan University and a visiting PhD at Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick. He is jointly supervised by Thomas Nichols and Jianfeng Feng. His research interests include imaging genetics, dimension reduction and causal inference in dynamical systems. He obtained a BSc in Mathematics from Fudan University in 2011.


Dragana Pavlovic

Dragana Pavlovic completed her Ph.D. in Statistics in 2015. Previously, she obtained a BSc at Royal Holloway, University of London, in mathematics and statistics. Her PhD work conerned estimation of community structures in brain networks under the supervision of Dr. Tom Nichols (University of Warwick) and Prof. Ed Bullmore (University of Cambridge). She is now a postdoctoral fellow at National University of Singapore with Dr. Thomas Yeo.


Bryan Guillaume

Bryan Guillaume completed his Ph.D. in 2015, having been Marie Curie PhD student at GlaxoSmithKline under the supervision of Dr. Thomas Nichols (Warwick University) and Dr. Christophe Phillips (Liège University). He joined GlaxoSmithKline in January 2011 within the framework of the European Neurophysics Marie Curie Initial Training Network. Before joining GlaxoSmithKline, he worked as a project engineer at the company C.M.I. (Belgium) in the context of thermal processes. In 2007, he earned a M.Sc. in mechatronics from Liège University (Belgium). Before that, in 2006, he earned a M.Sc. in engineering from the Ecole Centrale Paris (France). His PhD work, conducted while based at Warwick University, focused on methods improving the analysis of longitudinal neuroimaging data. He is now a postdoctoral fellow at National University of Singapore with Dr. Anqi Qiu.


Xu Chen

Dr. Xu Chen completed her Ph.D. in December 2014 in the Department of Statistics at the University of Warwick. She completed her BSc degree in Applied Mathematics (Information and Computational Science) at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. She is working on imaging genetics method for fMRI data analysis, with a research project primarily focused on heritability estimation using fMRI data from twin studies.


Lilia Costa

Dr. Lilia Costa completed her Ph.D. in October 2014 in the Department of Statistics at the University of Warwick. She earned a master degree at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, BR, in 2000, under the supervision of Dani Gamerman working with Bayesian Analysis. She has worked as lecturer and researcher in the area of psychometrics at the Federal University of Bahia, BR, since 2005. Currently she is a PhD student at Warwick University working with Tom Nichols and Jim Smith, studying the effective connectivity using fMRI data and graphical models.


Tian Ge

Topic: Imaging-Genetics Associations for Resting-State fMRI Data. Co-advised with Jianfeng Feng.


George Minas

George Minas, PhD, 2013. Dr. Minas was supervised by Dr John Aston and Professor Nigel Stallard and advised by Dr Thomas Nichols. He is worked on global testing and response-adaptive designs, with applications including clinical neuroscience and pharmacological fMRI.


M.S. Student Projects, University of Warwick

  • James Kwann. Classification of Multiple Sclerosis Patients From Lesion Data. 2012.
  • Thomas Honnor. Building a modelling framework for cluster inference: Where’s the blob? 2012.
  • Shen Ting Ang. False Discovery Rate Proceedures for Neuroimaging. 2012.
  • Romain Hendrickx. Using a Genetic Algorithm to Find Optimally Robust fMRI Designs. Visiting from University of Namur, Belgium. 2011.
  • Sam Cuthbertson. Erdos-Renyi Mixture Model for Graph Valued Data from Resting State fMRI Data. 2011.
  • Rachel Walton. Using Clustering to Infer the Structure of Brain Anatomy Heritability. 2009 – 2010.
  • Chipo Mashayamombe. Analysis of Proteomic Data During and Outside of a Migraine. 2010.

Undergraduate Research Scholarship Scheme (URSS) Project, University of Warwick

  • Shen Ting Ang. Improving the sensitivity of fMRI heritability estimates with spatial regularization. 2009 – 2010.

Ph.D. Students Advised, GlaxoSmithKline

  • David Cole, ICA-based Analysis of fMRI Clinical Trials Data. Co-advised with Christian Beckmann. Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Imperial College London. 2009 – 2012.
  • Reza Salimi, Advancing Meta Analysis in fMRI. Co-advised with Stephen Smith. FMRIB Centre, Oxford. August, 2007 – 2011.
  • Maria Vounou, Joint Modelling of Imaging & Genetics Data. Co-advised with B Whitcher (GSK) & G Montana (IC). Department of Mathematics (Statistics), Imperial College London. August, 2007 –

M.S. Student Projects, GlaxoSmithKline

  • Matt Silver. Evaluating Nontationarty Cluster Size Inference for Imaging Genetics VBM Studies. Co-advised with Giovanni Montana. Department of Mathematics (Statistics), Imperial College London. 2009 – 2010.

Biostatistics Ph.D. Students Advised, University of Michigan

  • Jian Kang. Spatial Point Process Modelling of Brain Imaging Data. 2009 –
  • Hui Zhang, Random Field Theory for Cluster Mass Inference. May 2005 – Nov 2008.
  • Lei Xu, Bayesian Spatial Modelling of Group fMRI Data. Co-advised with Timothy Johnson. May, 2005 – October, 2007.
  • Jeanette Mumford, Covariance modeling in group fMRI models. January, 2003 – June, 2006.
  • Wen-Lin Luo, General Linear Model for fMRI Time Series Data: Model Formulation, Covariance Estimation, and Model Selection. September, 2000 – August, 2004
  • Satoru Hayasaka, Validating and Improving Cluster Size Inference in Brain Image Analysis. January, 2001 – December, 2003

Biostatistics M.S. Students supported, University of Michigan

  • Xioabi Huang, RA for Norman Foster, Neurology. Analysis of FDG-PET image data in Alzheimer’s Disease patients & elderly normals. September, 2004 – August, 2007.
  • Wei Xie, Evaluation of FDR methods under smoothness. September 2004 – May 2006
  • Hui Zhang, RA for Nichols RO1. Developing SPMd software to evaluate parametric assumptions in fMRI data. September, 2004 – April, 2005
  • Jun Ding, RA for Nichols RO1. Developing SnPM software for nonpara- metric permutation inference on neuroimaging data. January, 2004 – May, 2005.
  • Kelly O’Brien, RA for Norman Foster, Neurology. Analysis of FDG-PET ROI data in Alzheimer’s Disease patients & elderly normals. January – May, 2004
  • Erick Heyt-Ender, RA for Thomas Nichols. Accounting for missingness in fMRI slice-to-volume motion-corrected data. May, 2003 – April, 2004

Neuroimaging
Statistics

Contact Info

Room D0.03
Deptment of Statistics
University of Warwick
Coventry
CV4 7AL
United Kingdom

Tel: +44(0)24 761 51086
Email: t.e.nichols 'at' warwick.ac.uk
Web: http://nisox.org
Blog: NISOx blog

[Book Cover]

Handbook of fMRI Data Analysis by Russ Poldrack, Thomas Nichols and Jeanette Mumford