Our Team
Founders
Saman Arfaie
MD and Master of Surgery (Candidate 2024) | Honors BA and BSc
Saman is a fourth-year McGill medical student. He obtained BSc. in Neurobiology, B.A. in Persian Literature, and double minors in Chemistry and Music at the University of California, Berkeley before conducting brain tumor research at UCSF. His projects include two incoming books with university presses: one on COVID-19 with the University of Manitoba Press and another on the Neurobiology of Creativity: Music Medicine and Self-Expression in Art with Cambridge University Press.
Mohammad Mofatteh
PhD, MPH, MSc, PGCert TLHE, BSc (Hons) | MBBCh (Candidate)
Mohammad is a former lecturer and scientist at the University of Oxford, UK, and is currently working towards his medical degree at Queen’s University Belfast, UK. He finished his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge where he worked on axonal transportation during embryogenesis. Afterwards, he was offered a Lectureship at the University of Oxford to study cellular oscillation. He has supervised the research and professional development of several undergraduate and postgraduate students in the UK and internationally. His award-winning work has appeared in several prestigious journals and international conferences.
Mohammad S. Mashayekhi
PhD, MSc, BSc | MD | Neurosurgery Resident
Mohammad is a PGY1 Neurosurgery resident at the University of Ottawa. He received his MD from the University of British Columbia in 2023. He obtained his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics at UBC before starting medical school. His thesis focused on the ‘Nature of Bose Gases Near Feshbach Resonance: The Interplay Between Few-body and Many-body Physics’. With several publications at hand and many underway, Mohammad is concurrently conducting neurosurgical research with several groups including those at King’s College London, the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia, McGill University, and Penn State University.
Executive Team Lead
Richard Ruan
BSc - Bioengineering
Richard is currently a Research Associate in the Ellinor Lab of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, working as part of the Broad’s Cardiovascular Disease Initiative and collaboration with Bayer, and is aiming for medical school. He graduated as a Haas Scholar and Regents’ Scholar from the University of California, Berkeley, with a BSc in Bioengineering and a thesis on the ‘Identification of Critical Host Factors in DENV NS1 and SARS-CoV-2 Spike Pathogeneses’ from the Harris Lab. He has also been involved in research in a variety of fields including community-based hepatitis efforts, brain tumor microenvironment and immunotherapy, pulmonary immunology, and cardiovascular regenerative medicine.
Operations Manager
Violet Antonick
HBSc - English Language & Literature
Violet obtained her Honours BA in English Language & Literature and minor in art history at the University of Vermont. She also received an Associate's degree from Columbia College Chicago where she double majored in Fine Arts & Fiction Writing. She has published several poems and essays and has recently finished her first fiction series for publication. With the expansion of NIC, and as the operations manager, she will be responsible for all logistical and administrative work for NIC.
Attending Physicians
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Yimin Chen
Attending Neurologist at Foshan Sanshui District People’s Hospital | MD | MSc
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Mohammed Ali Alvi
MS | MBBS | Fellowship at Mayo Clinic Neuro-Informatics Lab
Scientists
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Ali Sarabi
PhD (Industrial Engineering - Candidate) | MSc (Industrial Engineering) | BSc (Industrial Engineering)
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Arad Solgi
HBSc (Kinesiology/Health Sciences)
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Kamran Mir-Moghtadaei
HBSc (Comparative Physiology Specialist)
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Denys Pushenko
HBSc (Life Sciences/Chemistry/Physics)
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Nikoo Aghaei
BSc (Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behaviour (PNB) and a minor in Biochemistry)
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Maryam Rasouli Danesh
PhD | MS (Electronic Engineering) | BS (Computer Science)
Medical Students
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Yohann Pilon
MD/CM (Candidate) | BSc (Microbiology/Immunology)
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Michael Maalouf
MD/CM (Candidate) | HBSc (Physiology/Pharmacology)
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Neevya Balasubramaniam
MD/CM (Candidate)
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Faraz Honarvar
MD (Candidate) | MSc | HBSc
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Judy Chen
MD/PhD (Candidate) | BHSc
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Ahmed Al-Asmar
MD/CM (Candidate)
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Marco Istasy
MD (Candidate) | MAS (Biomedical Engineering) | HBSc (Neuroscience)
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Faye Yu Ci Ng
MBBS | National University of Singapore, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
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Samin Davoody
MD (Candidate)
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Jeremiah Oluwatomi Itodo Daniel
MB/CHB Medicine and Surgery (Candidate)
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Abdulkadir Mohamed
BM/BCH Medicine and Surgery (Candidate) | BA (Natural Sciences)
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Frederick Zhang
MD (Candidate) | BSc (Life Sciences)
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Davaine Joel Ndongo Sonfack
MD (Candidate) | MSc (Candidate)
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Emily Oulousian
MD (Candidate) | Master of Surgery (Candidate)
Undergraduate Students
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Dinglun (Robert) Luo
Team Lead | UC Berkeley - Molecular & Cell Biology, Toxicology
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Debora Ghosh
Team Lead | UC Berkeley - Molecular & Cell Biology - Neurobiology, Mathematics
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Kashika Bharol
Team Lead | UC Berkeley - Public Health, Molecular & Cell Biology
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Vitto Resnick
Team Lead | UC Berkeley - Chemical Biology - Computational Chemistry, Psychology, Molecular & Cell Biology - Neurobiology
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Beatrice Le
Team Lead | UC Berkeley - Microbial Biology, Data Science
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Heyuan (Michael) Ni
Team Lead | UC Berkeley - Molecular & Cell Biology, Data Science, Business Administration
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Yasmeen Medhat
Team Lead | UC Berkeley - Molecular & Cell Biology - Neurobiology
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Sahana Sarin
UC Berkeley - BA (Psychology)
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Kainat Pachakhail
UC Berkeley - BA (Integrative Biology)
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Rahul Rawat
Duke - MS (Biomedical Sciences - Candidate) | UC Berkeley - BA (Molecular & Cell Biology)
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Cinlong Huang
UC Berkeley - Molecular & Cell Biology
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Anisha Bellur
UC Berkeley - Psychology
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Lauren Clawson
UC Berkeley - Public Health, Data Science
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Erika Won
UC Berkeley - BS (Molecular Environmental Biology)
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Ashvin Irrinki
UC Berkeley - Molecular & Cell Biology
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George Balazs
UC Berkeley - Molecular & Cell Biology, Bioengineering
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Yaniv Moaddel
UC Berkeley - Sociology
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Jacqueline Chen
McMaster - Health Sciences, Psychology
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Negin Amini
McGill - Physiology
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Jack Wong
UC Berkeley - Molecular & Cell Biology - Neurobiology, Data Science
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Beth Belfield
UC Berkeley - Molecular & Cell Biology - Neurobiology, Psychology
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Ruth Feng
UC Berkeley - Molecular & Cell Biology - Neurobiology
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Rohin Sequeira
UC Berkeley - BA (Molecular & Cell Biology - Physiology)
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Halime Yilmaz
UC Berkeley - Chemical Biology, Toxicology
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Brian C Wen
UC Berkeley - Chemical Biology
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Miriam Taza
McGill - MSc (Neuroscience) | UToronto - HBSc (Neuroscience, Psychology)
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Susan Zhang Roodsari
UC Berkeley - BA (Molecular & Cell Biology, Economics)
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Christine Chau
UC Berkeley - BA (Molecular & Cell Biology)
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Raphael Fabre
UC Berkeley - Molecular & Cell Biology - Neurobiology