Maryam Shanechi facts for kids

Maryam M. Shanechi is a brilliant American scientist. She was born in Iran. She is a neuroengineer. This means she studies how our brains work. She also figures out how to use brain signals to control machines. These are called brain-machine interfaces.

Dr. Shanechi has received many awards. She was named one of MIT Technology Review's Innovators under 35 in 2014. In 2019, Science News called her one of 10 scientists to watch. She was also a finalist for the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in 2023. She is a special professor at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. She also works with the Neuroscience Graduate Program at the University of Southern California.

Early Life and Education

Maryam Shanechi was born in Iran. When she was 16, her family moved to Canada. She went to the University of Toronto. In 2004, she earned her first degree in engineering there.

After that, she moved to the MIT. She earned her master's degree in 2006. Then, she completed her PhD in 2011. She studied electrical engineering and computer science. She also did special research at Harvard Medical School. In 2012, she started working at the University of California, Berkeley. She later taught at Cornell University. Now, she is a Dean's Professor at the University of Southern California.

Understanding the Brain

While studying at MIT, Dr. Shanechi became very interested in neural decoding. This is like "reading" the brain's signals. It means figuring out what the brain is trying to do or think.

Brain Control for Machines

She created a special computer program. This program could tell where a monkey wanted to move a cursor on a screen. It did this just by looking at the monkey's brain activity. She made this program even better. It could decode brain signals much faster. This means it could understand the brain's messages in milliseconds.

Her lab, called the Shanechi Lab, has made new ways to understand brain activity. These methods can find the brain signals that best predict what someone will do. This helps improve how we "read" the brain. Her team also uses many different types of brain measurements at once. This helps them understand how different parts of the brain work together.

Helping with Anesthesia

In 2013, Dr. Shanechi developed a new brain decoding method. This method could help control how much anesthesia a patient needs. Anesthesia is medicine that makes you sleep during surgery. Her team worked with doctors from Massachusetts General Hospital. They were able to automatically control how deep a medically-induced coma was in animals. They did this by watching the animals' brain activity.

Brain and Mood

Dr. Shanechi is also very interested in using brain decoding to help with mood problems. These include conditions like PTSD and depression. Her team found a way to figure out a person's mood from their brain activity.

They studied seven patients who had tiny electrodes in their brains. These electrodes were there to help monitor their epilepsy. While the electrodes were in place, the patients answered questions about how they felt. Dr. Shanechi's lab used this information. They matched the brain activity to different moods. This helped them understand which brain signals were linked to which feelings. This work won a special award called the 3rd prize in the International BCI Awards.

Her lab has also found ways to predict how brain networks respond to special brain stimulation. This could help people with certain brain disorders. In the future, Dr. Shanechi hopes to create ways to automatically stimulate the brain. This could happen when a change in mood is detected.

Awards and Recognition

Dr. Shanechi has received many important awards for her work:

• NIH Director's New Innovator Award, 2020
• Science News 10 Scientists to Watch, 2019
• Popular Science Brilliant 10, 2015
• MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35, 2014
• NSF CAREER Award, 2015
• Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, 2019
• American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Curtis W. McGraw Research Award, 2021
• Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) Award, 2016
• Mid-Career Achievement Award, University of Toronto Engineering, 2019
• One Mind Rising Star Award, 2022