My Dream

I am an enthusiastic person in terms of studying whatever is related to the human body, including the brain and nervous system. It has been an intensive curiosity, not because of academia, but as a result of my curious mind since childhood. When I was in high school, I realized my exceptional talent in mathematics and physics, dealing with rational problems, formulas, and finding the answer to complex problems. It was at the end of high school that I took part in a conference to be familiar with different academic majors. The conference, at the Sharif University of Technology, incentivized me to study Biomedical Engineering, so after participating in the National University's Entrance Exam, I selected Biomedical Engineering as my major.

From the beginning, I found myself in the space of creation and productivity and could offer great performance in different courses. I was so determined that I decided to build a bright future full of creativity and added value. Among the endless choices to study, I found the medical signal and image processing as the most interesting ones. It is a sign of my passion for the field that I did not wait until the university offers the related courses. Hence, I searched and consulted with professors to be familiar with the most needed sources and started to learn about some language programming such as MATLAB and LabVIEW. My self-reliant approach to life helped me be well equipped with the required knowledge when I start doing my final bachelors' project about the combination of PET and MRI medical images using MATLAB. But, I cannot deny the fact that this project furnished me with more interest in this field of study, but I wanted more challenges and hands-on experiences. As a result, I pursued my academic life by attending one of the best universities in Iran as a graduate student.

It is always in my blood to try hard to be among the top students, and I gained ranked 1st among BSc and MSc students. I got the highest mark in courses like Digital Signal Processing (19/20), Biomedical Signal Processing (18.2/20), Neural Networks (18.8/20), Modeling and Simulation of Biological Systems (18.1/20), Computational Neuroscience (18/20). Having top scores was a positive point for me to get more involved in social activities. Getting the position of assistant lecturer was one of these merits that help me to gain a great deal of experience.

Receiving full marks has always been a breeze for me. Therefore, it was not surprising to see I received admission to the Ph.D. via the gifted and talented selective entrance academic program at Amirkabir University of Technology and Iran University of Science & Technology (The second and third highest-ranking university in Iran).

My old love for the human body and the need to be involved in the more challenging areas led me to join in the Iran Neural Technology center. At this center, I felt the joy of solving health problems with all my being. My project was about seizure detection by using ECoG signals in freely moving rats. I cannot say how much it means to me to work on a project that I felt is beneficial to humanity. Data acquisition, animal surgery, electrode implantation, using different methods to understand the nature of various signals, and dealing with challenges of empirical experiences were all so excited that push me forward to pursue my dreams in this field. This collaboration resulted in me being the lead author of the paper entitled "Automatic Detection of PTZ-Induced Seizures Based on Brain Functional Connectivity in rats (2017)". In this paper, I investigated the nature of the brain and the relationship between different brain areas in various states. I used my recorded ECoG data from rats to evaluate this approach. After graduation, I continued my research in this field. And I could be the lead author of two other papers entitled "Automatic seizure detection based on nonlinear dynamical analysis of EEG signals and mutual information (2018)" and "A framework for seizure detection using effective connectivity, graph theory and multi-level modular network (2020)". In addition to working on academic research, including closed-loop control, open-loop control, developing advanced approaches for signal and image processing, deep brain stimulation for suppression of diseases, and Animal training. I had this chance to get familiar with Dr. Mohammadi to do medical research. I cannot neglect the fact that this opportunity helps me to realize the importance of team-work activities and possessing a sense of responsibility to reach success.

It is now time to talk about the future as every history leads to shaping the future. The path to save millions of people goes through research and learning. Thus, I humbly express my desperate need to learn more with the optimism of learning fast due to my high learning abilities and analytical power. I am indeed studying in one of the most prestigious universities in Iran, bet there is a lot of restrictions on supplying devices and materials in my country. I am great at laboratory works and programming skills, but without having access to appropriate facilities, working openly and bravely will be difficult. Thus, I decided to leave Iran as I believe being connected to the free world will allow me to create, learn, and share my knowledge in the respective areas of interest. I am dreaming about establishing a lab in which I can work on investigating all aspects of the brain and using them to improve peoples' life.

After long-term research, I decided to apply to the University of California, Irvine due to its eminent professors with exceptional research background and the inclusive society thereof. It didn't take me long to notice that there is a great deal of closeness between my specialty and all sorts of studies and researches conducted in different labs. I am fully confident that my potential abilities and capabilities will be flourished in the short-term in this lab, and more importantly, under the stewardship of your outstanding professors. After having an online meeting with Prof. https://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=4522, my passion for applying to UCI intensifies, and I started making fantasy about to what extent it can be impressive if I can get admission. Not only his outstanding knowledge, but also his kind behavior pushes me forward to do my utmost to obtain this admission. During our informative interview, prof. introduced to me, prof. Emre Neftci, and prof. Joachim Vandekerckhove. I started searching about their research areas and interests, and I found out that there are a lot of professors in the cognitive science departments that my experience and knowledge are a good fit with their interests, including prof. Sara Mednik and prof. Aaron M. Bornstein. I certainly believe that by being admitted to this university, I am endlessly empowered to achieve more, create energy, and produce the added value in which I have always regarded as my goal.