Elaheh Akbari | PhD student
Elaheh has a bachelor’s degree in Engineering and a master’s degree in Cognitive Neuroscience. She has a keen interest in computational neuroscience and especially computational mechanisms underlying face perception. She is mainly interested in using CNNs as a testbed for exploring human face perception and the functional organization of the visual stream.
When she is not doing research, she reads novels, takes long walks in nature, and explores new cultures.
Katharina Dobs | Research Group Leader
Katha leads this group of fantastic people since October 2020. Previously, she was a postdoctoral researcher at MIT where she worked with Nancy Kanwisher. During her first Postdoc at CNRS-CerCo she worked with Leila Reddy and Weiji Ma. She completed her PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics under the supervision of Isabelle Bülthoff, Johannes Schultz and Justin Gardner. Katha's passion lies in exploring the intersections of AI and neuroscience to unlock the mysteries of the brain. You can find her CV here.
If she's not doing science, Katha loves traveling, despite the Munich to Giessen commute, and spending time with her family, her three kids and friends.
Leonard van Dyck | PhD student
Lenny is co-supervised with Martin Hebart. He received his MSc in Psychology with specialization in Cognitive Neuroscience from the University of Salzburg. His main research interest focuses on how our brain processes and organizes visual information. He has a passion for all kinds of dimensional approaches, ranging from neural data analysis to distinguishing nuances in coffee flavor.
Lenny loves to spend his free time hiking in the mountains or campervanning around the world.
Anastasia Lado | PhD student
Anastasia holds a Bachelor’s in Psychology and a Master’s in Neural and Behavioral Science. She previously researched multisensory processing in speech perception, including the McGurk illusion. Anastasia is passionate about computational neuroscience and aims to use deep neural networks to explore functional specialization in the visual system. Moreover, since 2020 she is involved in Trend In Africa organization and helped organize two neuroscience workshops on the African continent.
Outside the lab, she enjoys exploring nature and urban jungles, and is a self-proclaimed adventurous eater who loves trying new and exotic foods from different cultures.
Hilal Nizamoglu | PhD student
For the past four years, Hilal has dived deep in the action perception and biological motion literature during her BSc and MSc years in Turkey. Currently, she is doing her PhD studies on understanding the role of facial movements on face processing and identification. She is very much interested in neuroimaging tools including fMRI and EEG, and she would like to improve her skills on computational neuroscience.
In her free time, she likes to go hiking and teach herself a new word in any of the world languages. One day she wants to visit and write about Jazz Cafés all over the globe.
Sule Tasliyurt-Celebi | PhD student
Sule has a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in cognitive science. She is currently focusing on how scene information affects face processing behavior by combining psychophysical tools including eye tracking with computational modeling.
In her free time, Sule takes advantage of living in the middle of Europe to travel a lot and enjoy the wonderful nature.
Kemal Caner | Master student
Kemal has completed his bachelor’s degree in psychology in Cyprus and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in the Mind, Brain, and Behaviour program at JLU. He is a student assistant at the VCCN Lab and is broadly interested in topics of face perception, attention and phenomenal awareness.
Beyond his commitments to the Lab, Kemal enjoys his halloumi in various ways; raw, grated, grilled, fried, baked, barbecued and even marinated.
Fatma Celebi | Master student
Fatma is a master's student in the Mind, Brain, and Behavior program at JLU. Concurrently, she is a student assistant at the VCCN Lab. Through these roles, she takes pleasure in exploring diverse facets of face perception, refining her skills, and deepening her understanding of computational neuroscience. Her primary focus is on dynamic face perception and the processing of facial expressions, with a desire to broaden her knowledge of various neural network architectures.
Beyond her academic pursuits, Fatma is an enthusiast of art in all its forms. She enjoys attending art exhibitions and theaters. In her free time, she expresses her creativity through painting.
Saskia Fohs | Master student
Saskia is a master's student in the Mind, Brain, and Behavior program at JLU. She is currently working as a student assistant at the VCCN Lab. She is interested in how neural networks and training sets with different statistics can be leveraged to explore the functionality of biases. Additionally, she is working in working memory research and what cognitive factors might influence systematic biases there.
In her free time, Saskia is mostly out hiking, climbing and filling her "real life Pokedex" with any wildlife that crosses ways with her and her camera.
Sophia Gruber | Master student
Sophia is a master`s student of psychology at JLU. She is currently writing her master´s thesis at the VCCN Lab on the influence of scene information on face perception.
In her free time, Sophia enjoys going for a run and spending time with friends.
Christine Huschens | Bachelor student
Christine is a bachelor's student in Psychology. With her thesis she is currently working on, she is hoping to further her knowledge about how Deep Neural Networks can explain interesting phenomena of the human visual system, such as seeing faces in objects.
In her free time, she loves going for a run, spending time with her friends or being surprised by a good movie in the sneak preview.
Former lab members
Pranjul Gupta | PhD student
Pranjul attained his bachelor's of technology degree in India and his master's of science degree in Germany. His main research interest is the computational software (AI) of human visual perception. He uses python, statistics, deep learning, EEG, MEG, fMRI, psychophysics, including many other awesome data-driven scientific methods to better understand face perception in different areas of the brain.