SCIENTIFIC TEAM
 The passionate LEADER and DIRECTORDr. Rosanna Olsen |
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Dr. Rosanna Olsen
Dr. Olsen is the passionate LEADER and DIRECTOR of the Olsen Lab. She is a Scientist at the Rotman Research Institute (RRI) at Baycrest and an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto.
She received her PhD in Psychology with concentration in cognitive neuroscience from Stanford University in California. She then completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest.
GRADUATE STUDENTS
 Shireen Parimoo |
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Shireen is a graduate student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto. She is co-supervised by Dr. Olsen and Dr. Cheryl Grady.
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She completed her Bachelor's of Science at the University of Toronto, with concentrations in Psychology. She has volunteered at the Olsen lab since 2016.
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Her current project investigates the effect of hyperbinding in older adults. She aims to find out if memory impairment in the elderly is partially due to inappropriate allocation of attention and memory to irrelevant details.
Shireen Parimoo
Kirk Geier
Kirk is a graduate student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto.
He completed his BSc in Biomedical Science with concentration in neuroscience from King’s College London. He then went on to complete his Master’s in Space Physiology and Health. His experiences range from working with C.elegans and rats, to working in a diagnostic setting, to conducting neuroimaging and eye-tracking experiments.
 Kirk Geier |
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Negar Mazloum-Farzaghi
Negar is a graduate student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto. She is co-supervised by Dr. Rosanna Olsen and Dr. Jennifer Ryan.
She completed her Honours Bachelor of Science in Psychology at York University. Some of her experiences in cognitive neuroscience include delivering research based interventions to patients with dementia in order to investigate effects on memory, as well as exploring the neuroscience of learning and memory in younger and older adults.
She is interested in examining the structural brain changes that occur in older adults who are exhibiting early signs of cognitive decline, as well as identifying specific regions of the brain that are affected by neurological impairments.
Nick Hoang
Nick is a graduate student, co-supervised by Drs. Rosanna Olsen and Bradley Buchsbaum, in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto.
His research assesses pattern completion and pattern separation as a function of eye movements, brain activations, healthy aging, and hippocampal amnesia.
In 2016 and under the supervision of Drs. Shayna Rosenbaum and Morris Moscovitch, he assessed pattern separation in the auditory and visual modalities of healthy older adults and amnesic patients; the findings were presented as a nano-symposium talk at Neuroscience 2017 in Washington, D.C.
In 2018, he conducted a fMRI study under Dr. Morris Moscovitch to assess gist and detailed mnemonic discrimination of highly similar scenes along the hippocampal longitudinal axis. The behavioural and neuroimaging results were presented as posters in Neuroscience 2019 in Chicago and Cognitive Neuroscience Society 2020 in Boston, respectively.
For access to his online CV, please click on the link below:
http://www2.psych.utoronto.ca/Neuropsychologylab/nick.html
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Lydia Jiang
Lydia is a graduate student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto.
She completed her Bachelor of Science at the University of Alberta with concentrations in Psychology as well as a minor in Biological Science. She then went on to complete her Master of Science in Psychological Science at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign (UIUC). Her experiences range from working with healthy adults and subclinical population to conducting neuroimaging and EEG experiments.
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Her current project investigates visual discrimination and white matter MTL structures.
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LAB MANAGER
Anika Choi
Anika is a research assistant and the current lab manager in the Olsen lab.
She completed her Honours Bachelor of Science at the University of Toronto with concentrations in Neuroscience and Psychology as well as a minor in Physiology.
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She is currently involved in a collaborative project studying brain changes in aging via imaging, eye-tracking, and behavioural measures at the Rotman Research Institute.
Zenan (Tommy) Tang
Volunteer
Summer 2019 - Present
Wei Shao
Research Assistant
Fall 2019 to Present
Catherine Wang
Volunteer
Fall 2019 to Present
LAB ALUMNI
Rachelle Martell
Fall 2016 to Spring 2017
Mikaeel Valli
Lab Manager: Fall 2016 - Summer 2018
Graduate Student, UofT
Shamanth Chedde
Fall 2017
Verena Mikhail
Winter 2017 to Fall 2018
Nahid Iseyas
Volunteer
Fall 2017-June 2019
Keisha Joseph
Winter 2018
Lauren Iafrate
Research Assistant
Summer 2019
Leanne Mendoza
Research Assistant: Summer 2016 to Fall 2019
Graduate Student, UCL
Jessica Robin
Postdoctoral Fellow: 2016-2019
Scientist at Winterlight Labs
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​Aasritha Thotakura
Summer 2017
Kristine Jeganathan
Summer 2017
Yumna Farooq
Winter 2017 to Summer 2017
Nathanael Shing
Lab Manager: 2018 - 2020
Medical Student
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