My academic journey began with a bachelor’s degree in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, where I developed an interest in computational neuroscience and bioinformatics through several elective courses. This curiosity was further strengthened by my bachelor thesis, in which I developed a computational model to predict the time to de-isolation of COVID-19 ICU patients. Wanting to build on this intersection between data science and biology, I decided to pursue a master’s degree in Systems Biology and Bioinformatics, where I continued to explore this interest in computational neuroscience. During my master’s thesis, in which I modeled a part of the auditory pathway using a neural mass model, I further deepened this interest in computational neuroscience and neural dynamics. As a PhD candidate, I will focus on integrating psychophysical experiments in humans with deep neural network models that approximate early-to-intermediate visual processing, incorporating a biologically motivated retinal layer, to bridge computational and experimental approaches to inform vision restoration therapies.
