Dr. Athena Akrami

Dr. Athena Akrami hadn’t heard of neuroscience until she came across an article on artificial neural networks as an undergraduate. She wondered whether she could build a brain herself--and went on to build the first brain-computer interface in her home country, Iran. Her subsequent years as a Computational Neuroscience Ph.D. student and postdoc were spent in Trieste, Italy, where she used attractor models and in vivo experimental techniques to elucidate the underpinnings of memory and perception. After a second postdoc at Princeton, she moved to the University College London to set up her own systems neuroscience laboratory in 2018. As a long-COVID-19 survivor, she also talks candidly with Cristiana about her experience with the illness: both how she coped with symptoms and her involvement on a digital platform where patients share their experience with the disease. Through this group, Athena was able to leverage her expertise in modeling and data analysis to lead a seminal study quantifying patients’ symptoms and tracking their recovery. Her groundbreaking work on COVID and in neuroscience is a testament to Athena’s endless passion for scientific discovery.