This month, Drs. Mahsa Dadar and Yashar Zeighami began their careers as Assistant Professors in the Departement of Psychiatry, and Researchers at the Douglas Research Centre.
Dr. Dadar received her Bachelor's and Master’s Degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tehran and Concordia University, and her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from McGill University. She did a postdoctoral fellowship with the International Progressive MS Alliance (IPMSA) team at McGill, followed by a joint postdoctoral fellowship between the CERVO Brain Research Centre in Quebec and the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.
At the Douglas, she will lead a research group focusing on Aging, Cerebrovascular, and Neurodegenerative Disorders, and joins the Division of Human Neuroscience and the Aging, Cognition, and Alzheimer's Disease Theme-Based Group. Her research program will be articulated around three main components:
- Developing neuroimaging and machine learning tools to accurately detect and track signs of cerebrovascular and neurodegenerative pathologies
- Investigating the relationship between cerebrovascular and neurodegenerative pathologies, the impact of lifestyle and environmental factors on these diseases, and the impact of cerebrovascular pathology on clinical outcomes in neurodegenerative disease populations
- Ex-vivo assessment of cerebrovascular disease using post-mortem MRI and histology
We are looking forward to learning about her exciting work soon!
Dr. Zeighami received his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and his Masters degree in Biomedical Engineering from University of Tehran. He finished his PhD in Neuroscience at McGill University in 2018 working at Human Dopamine Neuroimaging Lab studying Parkinson’s disease progression via brain network. Dr. Zeighami visited Allen Institute for Brain Sciences as a visiting scholar during his PhD. He did his postdoctoral fellowship at the McGill Centre for Integrative Neuroscience (MCIN).
At the Douglas, he will lead a research group focusing on Brain Aging in Health and Disease, and joins the Division of Human Neuroscience and the Aging, Cognition, and Alzheimer's Disease Theme-Based Group. His research program will investigate healthy brain aging and the mechanisms underlying neurodegenerative disorders using three main approaches:
- Creating a comprehensive multi-scale model of structural and functional brain alterations across the lifespan using multimodal brain MRIs
- Investigating the link between observed MRI changes in post-mortem samples and the underlying cellular alterations, with translational applications for in vivo datasets
- Identifying the genetic and environmental risk factors that cause deviation from the normative brain-behaviour trajectories, to develop diagnostic and prognostic models.
We are excited to hear more about his work in the coming months and years!
Please join us in extending a warm welcome to our two newest recruits!