Team

Roberto Souza - Assistant Professor, University of Calgary

Principal Investigator

Roberto Souza is a dual citizen from Brazil and the United States, working as an Assistant Professor at the Electrical and Software Engineering Department at the University of Calgary, Canada, since July 2020. He has a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Federal University of Pará (2012), an M.Sc. (2014) and PhD (2017), both in Computer Engineering from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP). Before becoming an Assistant Professor, Roberto worked for three years as a postdoctoral scholar in the Radiology Department at the University of Calgary. He has international experience, having worked as an intern at the Grenoble Institute of Technology, France, and the University of Pennsylvania, United States. Dr Souza has extensive expertise in image processing and machine learning. His research is currently focused on innovative strategies for data integration and data mining in imaging applications. Look at his Google Scholar page for a list of relevant publications. 

Mariana Bento - Assistant Professor, University of Calgary

Principal Investigator

Mariana is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical and of Electrical and Software Engineering, a full member of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, funded by NSERC, who has expertise in medical image processing and machine learning applied to aging and dementia. Mariana has a B.Sc. in Teleinformatics Engineering from the Federal University of Ceará (2011), an M.Sc. (2013) and PhD (2016), both in Computer Engineering from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP). Before the current position, she served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Radiology and Clinical Neurosciences, University of Calgary.  She develops more robust and reliable open tools in neuroimaging and is engaged in open science activities and EDI activities, including conducting workshops. Look at her Google Scholar page for a list of relevant publications. 

Amir Shamaei – PDF, Electrical and Software Engineering  (University of Calgary)

Amir Shamaei is a skilled medical signals analysis and reconstruction expert who specializes in applying deep learning and machine learning techniques. He holds a Ph.D. in medical signal analysis using deep learning from Brno University of Technology, where he received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant. Amir is a postdoctoral fellow at the prestigious Advanced Imaging and Artificial Intelligence Lab at the University of Calgary. In this role, he develops and implements novel autoDL reconstruction methods to improve MRI imaging. His research focuses on incorporating redundancies in MRI data, such as integrating past subject-specific information via deep learning models. Amir is also developing MRIntelligence, a software application that combines these innovations to reduce MRI examination times and expedite analysis. Previously, he gained extensive experience as a medical image and signals software developer at Czech Academy of Science, translating innovative research into practical solutions for medical diagnostics. Amir has published several peer-reviewed papers in major journals and conferences. His programming skills include Java, Python, C++, PyTorch, and MATLAB. Outside of work, Amir’s interests include artificial intelligence, history, Arduino, and reading nonfiction books. 

Kauê Tartarotti Nepomuceno Duarte – PDF, Biomedical Engineering (University of Calgary)

Kauê TN Duarte is a fellow member of the AI2Lab and Vascular Imaging Laboratory groups. He obtained his B.Sc. in Systems Analysis from the University of Campinas in 2014. In the same university, he earned his M.Sc. in System Informatics and Communication in 2017 and completed his Ph.D. in the same field in 2021. Throughout his career, KTND has focused on developing techniques for image segmentation, classification, and clustering across various domains. His primary objective is enhancing machine learning techniques to achieve generalizability and explainability. Google Scholar link (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Fr7gWkkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra) 

Alexandre Lopes – PhD Student, Computer Science (University of Campinas)

Alexandre Lopes is a PhD Student at the University of Campinas under the supervision of Prof. Helio Pedrini (from the University of Campinas) and Prof. Roberto Souza (from the University of Calgary), and he is a part-time data scientist at Venturus, a Brazillian Inovation Institute.

Alexandre is currently a member of the Visual Informatics Laboratory (LIV) of the University of Campinas and Advanced Imaging And Artificial Intelligence Lab [(AI)**2] of the University of Calgary.

His main interest is on computer vision projects, and he is currently working with monocular depth estimation. He has previous experience with NLP, especially working with BERT-based models!

Mohammad Sahnoon – PhD Student, Electrical and Software Engineering (University of Calgary)

Mohammad Sahnoon is a PhD student in Electrical and Software Engineering at the University of Calgary and works under the supervision of Dr. Roberto Souza and Dr. Merkebe Demissie. Mohammad is a part of the NSERC-CREATE-IISC Group, which is an interdisciplinary group with a focus on sustainable infrastructures funded by NSERC. Mohammad has a B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the University of Sharjah, UAE (2015) and an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering with a focus on Machine Learning from the American University of Sharjah, UAE (2017). Prior to joining the University of Calgary, Mohammad worked as a Design and Estimation Engineer at Concord-Corodex Group, UAE and as an Electrical Lab Engineer and Instructor at the Institute of Applied Technology, UAE. His main research interests are computer vision applications, target detection, and deep learning.

Hanna Bugler  – MSc Biomedical Engineering (University of Calgary)

Hanna is a master’s student in Biomedical Engineering under the co-supervision of Dr. Ashley Harris and Dr. Roberto Medeiros de Souza. She completed her BEng in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering at Carleton University. Her research project seeks to analyzes, in real-time, the quality of magnetic resonance spectroscopy data to determine required minimum scan times. Her previous research experience includes developing pre-processing protocol and automating regions of interest selection for second harmonic generation collagen fiber microscopy images.

Farzaneh Dehghani – PhD Student, Biomedical Engineering (University of Calgary)

Farzaneh is a Ph.D. student in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Calgary, working under the supervision of Dr. Mariana Bento and Dr. Sayeh Bayat and funded by the HBI International Graduate Recruitment Scholarship. She received her MSc degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Isfahan, where she worked on the Bone Age Assessment of children in an automatic manner. Medical image processing, computer vision, deep/machine learning, and computer-aided diagnosis constitute her areas of interest. The objective of her research is to develop trustworthy machine learning algorithms for Alzheimer’s Disease and healthy aging.

Gabriel Dias – MSc Student, Biomedical Engineering (University of Calgary)

Gabriel is a visiting research master's student in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Calgary, under the supervision of Drs. Roberto Souza and Ashley Harris. His main supervisor in Brazil is Dr. Leticia Rittner. He graduated in Electrical Engineering from the University of Campinas and was awarded the Emerging Leaders in the Americas Program scholarship. His research interest lies in contributing to the ongoing efforts to overcome barriers to clinical use in Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy. Specifically, he is investigating Machine Learning techniques that can speed up the acquisitions for the study of the gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) metabolite. Additionally, he is a Google DeepMind scholar with a commitment to the ethical progression of Artificial Intelligence. 

Natalia Dubljevic – MSc Student, Biomedical Engineering (University of Calgary)

Natalia is a Biomedical Engineering master's student specializing in medical imaging at the University of Calgary under the co-supervision of Richard Frayne and Roberto de Souza. She received her BSc in Honours Physics from the University of British Columbia. Natalia is interested in research at the intersection of medical imaging and AI, and has previously worked on problems such as tumour segmentation and radiomics analysis. Her current project investigates the effect of MR coil configurations on deep learning MR image reconstruction. 

Rodrigo Berto – MSc Student, Biomedical Engineering (University of Calgary)

Rodrigo is a master's student in biomedical engineering at the university of Calgary. His undergraduate is in Electronic Engineering and he graduated with Magna Cum Laude Honors at the Aeronautics Institute of Technology in Brazil. Rodrigo's research is on improving preprocessing of Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy data with machine learning. Rodrigo has worked for two years as a data engineer in a renewable energy company and he's passionate about developing data pipeline and data structure solutions. 

Neha Gianchandani – MSc Student, Biomedical Engineering (University of Calgary)

Neha is a master's student in the Biomedical Engineering graduate program of the University of Calgary. She has an undergraduate background in Computer Science and is working on research in the areas of machine learning and deep learning applied to brain magnetic resonance imaging. The goal of her project is to detect regional biomarkers of brain ageing using magnetic resonance imaging. She currently holds the Brain CREATE scholarship for pursuing research in the area of neurotechnologies. She is an early career researcher with an interest in utilizing technologies to improve healthcare. Look at her Google Scholar page for a list of relevant publications.

José Carlos Cazarin Filho  – MSc Electrical and Software Engineering (University of Calgary)

José is a master’s student in Electrical and Software Engineering program at the University of Calgary, working under the supervision of Dr. Roberto Souza. He received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Campinas. He has worked in the industry of embedded systems since 2013, with experience in medical devices, localization systems and, more recently, machine learning and image processing in embedded devices. 

Anik Das  – MSc Biomedical Engineering (University of Calgary)

Anik Das is a graduate student who is pursuing his MSc in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Calgary under the supervision of Dr. Mariana Pinheiro Bento. He completed his BSc and 1st MSc in Computer Science & Engineering. He has been studying and working with machine learning and deep learning since his bachelor program. Now, the area of his research is introducing ML and DL techniques to study medical images (e.g. brain MRI), considering data augmentation, domain adaptation and transfer learning.

Mahsa Dibaji  – MSc Electrical and Software Engineering (University of Calgary)

Mahsa is a master's student in Electrical and Software Engineering program at the University of Calgary, working under the supervision of Dr. Mariana Bento. She received her B.Sc. in Computer Science from Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. She is interested in medical applications of machine learning and developing interpretable and fair models to address Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in healthcare. Her research project aims to mitigate bias and ensure fairness in machine learning applications applied to Brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging. She currently holds an Alberta Graduate Excellence scholarship for international students.

Abbas Omidi  – MSc Electrical and Software Engineering (University of Calgary)

Abbas is a Software Engineering M.Sc. student at the University of Calgary, supervised by Dr. Roberto Souza. His interests are machine learning in general and deep learning in particular. He is working in the applied AI area and is curious about implementing practical AI-based solutions to real-world problems. He loves teaching, sharing his experiences, and volunteering. He currently holds the Alberta Graduate Excellence Scholarship (AGES) and is the Vice President External of the ESEG. You can keep in touch with him through his LinkedIn. 

Swastik Mukherjee -  Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering (Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India)

Swastik Mukherjee is a third-year undergraduate student pursuing Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. He is visiting the University of Calgary under the MITACS Globalink Research Internship Program to work under the supervision of Dr. Roberto Souza on the Project titled “Garbage Classification based on Images”. Before joining AI2Lab, he worked as a research intern at the Digital Image Processing Lab, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. Swastik’s research interests include machine learning, computer vision and its application in various fields such as medical imaging and Natural Language Processing. Apart from academics, Swastik is passionate about music, films, dancing and chess. 

Yogesh Chawla -  Agricultural and Food Engineering (Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur)

Yogesh Chawla is a BTech student in Agricultural and Food Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He is also pursuing a Minor in Computer Science and a Micro Specialization in Artificial Intelligence. He will be visiting the University of Calgary on May 2023 under the MITACS Globalink Research Internship Program to work under the supervision of Dr. Roberto Souza to research on "Garbage Classification System based on Images". 

He has previously worked at Digital Agriculture Discovery (DAD) Lab at Purdue University on "Generalisation of Deep Learning Object Detection Models" and AI Institute of Resilient Agriculture (AIIRA) at Iowa State University on "Self Supervised Multi-modal data fusion strategies". He is interested in machine learning, image processing, and deep learning in various domains, such as agriculture and medical imaging. In his spare time, Yogesh enjoys playing volleyball and video games.

Shannon Wong - Engineering (University of Calgary)

Shannon is an undergraduate student entering her second year of Engineering at the University of Calgary. This summer, she will be conducting research on machine learning and medical imaging at the AI2 lab under the guidance of Dr. Mariana Bento. In her free time, Shannon enjoys birdwatching.

Mansi Singhal - Electrical Engineering (Dayalbagh Educational Institute)

Mansi Singhal is an undergraduate student in Electrical Engineering at the Dayalbagh Educational Institute, India. She is working as MITACS Globalink Research Intern (2023) at the University of Calgary, conducting her research on "Fair Machine Learning for Brain MR Data Analysis" under Dr. Mariana Bento's supervision. She has previously worked on machine learning and image processing models for lung cancer detection and presented her research at a National System Conference (2022). She was awarded with the Director's Gold Medal for securing the highest grade point in the Diploma in Electronics Engineering (2021), and also selected for an international student exchange program with Hong Kong University. Her aim is to conduct research in the biomedical field using machine learning and artificial intelligence that helps and benefits society

Timothy Thomas George - Computer Science (Vellore Institute of Technology)

Timothy Thomas George is a third-year undergraduate student pursuing Computer Science and Engineering at the Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai, India. He will be visiting the University of Calgary under the MITACS Globalink Research Internship Program to work under the supervision of Dr. Roberto Souza. His project will focus on deep-learning-based techniques for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) reconstruction. Timothy's research interests include deep learning, computer vision, and fault-tolerant software design. He has also applied his skills to population surveying and crisis psychology. Timothy graduated from the Indian Community School, Kuwait, in 2020 with high distinction. He was a summer student at Tamkang University, Taiwan, in 2022. Before joining AI2Lab, he worked as a research intern at the Centre for Cyber-Physical Systems, Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai, India. Timothy is passionate about science education and has conducted seminars on research writing for second-year students. He was awarded the VIT Chennai Meritorious Award for his academic performance in 2022. 

Armin Sandhu - Software Engineering (University of Calgary)

Armin is an incoming third-year undergraduate student pursing Software Engineering at the University of Calgary. Armin is interested in the areas of machine learning and deep learning, and exploring how these methods could be used to build software that is applicable to the real world. Over the summer,  Armin will be joining the AI2Lab under the supervision of Roberto Souza to conduct research focused on the intersection of machine learning and medical imaging.  

Akhil Nair - Aerospace Engineering (Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur)

Akhil Nair is an undergraduate student in Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. This summer he will be conducting research on “Fair Machine Learning for Brain MR Data Analysis” under MITACS-GRI program at University of Calgary under the supervision of Dr. Mariana Bento.

He has previously worked on various machine learning and image processing models for Brain Tumor detection. He is interested in machine learning, and deep learning with emphasis on image processing.