Hello, my name is Ammar! I'm a lab tech working with Nancy Kanwisher at MIT. My work gets at trying to understand the functional organization of the brain using a mix of neuroimaging and computational modeling. I have a lot of fun and am incredibly lucky that I get to do this every day (and get paid for it, too!). See my publications to get a sense of my most recent work.
This fall I'll be starting my PhD with Talia Konkle & George Alvarez at Harvard University. In my graduate research, I plan to use computational and empirical methods to answer questions about the brain's functional landscape. Specifically, I want to understand the consequences of functional architecture and task objective in shaping high-level perception in the brain & mind. How can we develop constrained models of human perception that accurately capture both neural and behavioral responses? And how do complex perceptual mechanisms emerge from more simple, basic principles? All of this in service of understanding the principles underlying biological & artificial intelligence.
I graduated from UCLA in 2023, studying neuroscience while working with Alcino Silva. I was born and raised in a city east of Los Angeles by an awe-inspiring mom and two older sisters. We are a tight-knit bunch.