Gugan Sangha, MSc

 completed my BSc in Psychology, and MSc in Brain Imaging and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Birmingham. I worked for the neuroimaging company, IXICO, and spent a year there working with MRI and PET data looking at the effectiveness of new brain segmentation algorithms as well as observing structural changes from clinical populations such as Alzheimer’s patients. Recently, I obtained a PhD studentship, supervised by Dr Davinia Fernández-Espejo and Dr Damian Cruse in January 2023. This PhD project is about exploring the effect of transcranial direct current stimulation in patients with Prolonged Disorders of Consciousness to identify a therapeutic intervention as well as developing a predictive model to help capture which structural and functional features of the brain make an individual more likely to respond to transcranial direct current stimulation.

Davide Aloi, MSc

I was born in Florence, Italy. I completed a BSc in Psychology of Cognitive Processes at the University of Florence in 2016 and a MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience and Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of Padua, Italy in 2018. In my bachelor’s degree, I spent a semester at the University of Bielefeld, Germany, where I studied Physiological Psychology. During the second year of my master’s degree, I worked for the Research Centre for Mind, Brain and Behaviour in Granada, Spain, where I contributed to an ongoing research on ERP and dyslexia. There, I also carried out my own project on EEG resting-state functional networks and graph-analysis, with the specific aim of differentiating proficient readers from poor readers by means of graph-derived metrics. As of recently, I have obtained a PhD position at the Centre for Human Brain Health, School of Psychology, supervised by Dr Davinia Fernández-Espejo and co-supervised by Dr Damian Cruse. The PhD project is about exploring the effect of transcranial direct current stimulation associated with passive mobilisation on the dynamics of the motor systems as well as on motor responsiveness. DXA869@student.bham.ac.uk @davide_aloi93

Sara Calzolari, MSc

I did my BSc in Cognitive Psychology and Psychobiology, and MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience and Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of Padova, Italy. I joined the Erasmus+Traineeship program and spent 6 months working in Dr Damian Cruse’s lab. There, I carried on a project aimed at looking for EEG markers of semantic embodiment to be used as prognostic tool for acute comatose patients, and assisted in a work on the EEG signal improvement for the motor imagery paradigm. I now obtained a BBSRC MIBTP PhD studentship, supervised by Dr Davinia Fernández-Espejo and Dr Andrew Bagshaw in the Fall 2018. As PhD student, I intend to investigate the functional architecture of consciousness by means of fMRI and tDCS, looking at the anticorrelated pattern of DMN and attentional network during internal and external awareness processes.​

SXC1127@student.bham.ac.uk

@Sara__CN 

Anny Maza, MSc

I completed my BSc in Biomedical Engineering at Universitat Politècnica de València in 2017 and earned the related MSc at the same institution in the following year. I am specialised in Bioelectronics and Medical Technology. My interest in the study of biomedical signals related to brain damage started during my master’s thesis work, which I conducted in the Neurorrehabilitation and Brain Research Group at Universitat Politècnica de València. Currently, I am pursuing my PhD studies under the supervision of Dr. Roberto Llorens and Prof. Valery Naranjo in the same institution. As PhD student, my research focuses on the analysis of brain activity during motor and emotion-related tasks on individuals with disorders of consciousness using non-invasive techniques such as EEG and fNIRS​

​amm285@student.bham.ac.uk

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Yolanda Balboa Bandeira, MSc

I completed a BSc (Hons) in Psychology at the University of the Basque Country (Spain) (2012-2016), where, during the last year, I collaborated in a research project about acquired brain injury and speech impairment. After that I completed a master’s degree in Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of Deusto (2017-2018) (Spain).  Since then, I am doing my PhD at the same university in the Neuropsychology of Severe Medical Conditions research team, with a pre-doctoral grant for University Teacher Training (FPU, University of Deusto). My thesis project focuses on non-invasive brain stimulation techniques and their effectiveness and applicability in the acquisition of a second or foreign language.
I am currently doing my research internship at the University of Birmingham, under the supervision of Dr. Davinia Fernandez-Espejo..​

​yxb228@student.bham.ac.uk

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