I want to share a few quick slides about my research, which contain something I personally love: Legos and dogs!

You might be wondering, “What’s the connection?” Well, it’s all about illustrating what I am interested in: studying population heterogeneity.

First up, Legos. If you’ve ever stepped on one, you know they’re unforgettable! But beyond their foot-aching fame, Legos are a brilliant example of how various pieces, each unique, can come together to form incredible structures. This is a playful yet interesting analogy for the diversity within populations I explore in my research.

And dogs, who doesn’t love them? From tiny Chihuahuas to my beloved Tibetan Mastiff (see pic), they’re all the same species but with remarkable variety.

So, these first few slides, with Legos and dogs, are not just a glimpse into things I always enjoyed, but also a light-hearted entry into the more complex aspects of my research:

Brain Functioning: our brains are all different, and we all make different decisions! One of my major aims is to develop advanced statistical and computational methods to investigate the complexities of dynamic functional connectivity (DFC). Think of the brain as a bustling city, each region interconnected like buildings and streets. Traditional studies capture a snapshot of this city, but it is much more instructive to follow what happens by installing cameras to monitor its ever-changing dynamics. Similarly for the brain, instead of relying on static images, we can try to capture the changing flow of neural connections. By applying Bayesian methods to functional MRI data, we can track and understand how different regions of the brain activate and interact over time. This is like watching the city’s traffic flow over time and observing how people and vehicles move and interact throughout the day. These insights are crucial in identifying how various factors, such as age, genetics, nutrition, and medical conditions, influence brain connectivity.

The Human Microbiome: how diverse microbial communities in our bodies impact our health and environment, revealing surprising connections and insights.

Tumor Heterogeneity in Radiology: Here, I focus on the subtle and complex differences between types of tumors, studying the latent patterns in radiology images and features.

Here are the slides!