Senior Research Scientists


Dr. Kwun Kei (Eric) Ng

My current research is on the brain functional and structural changes associated with healthy ageing, especially on the functional connectomic changes during rest and task.

As a Post-doc, I am responsible for designing experiments and conducting multimodal data analysis based on EEG and fMRI.

I also have a general interest in applied statistical methods for behavioral and neuroimaging data. I was trained as a cognitive psychologist when I pursued my PhD in NUS.






Dr. Siwei (Cisy) Liu

I'm currently involved in projects studying brain functional and structural development underlying individual differences in young population, including typical developing adolescents, individuals at ultra-high risk for psychosis, and children with ADHD and ASDC.

As a research fellow in Dr. Zhou's lab, I am responsible for designing psychological experiments, performing neuroimaging research using EEG, fMRI and DTI, and exploring the application of new imaging methods to our research.

My research interest is in the neural basis of human cognition and memory. I did my PhD at the psychology department in the National University of Singapore.

Dr. Xing Qian

My current research projects include the functional and structural brain changes associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism spectrum disorder, systemic lupus erythematosus in adults, and dementia in aging. I am also involved in the test-retest reliability studies of brain functional connectivity measures derived from different scanning sequences and paradigms.

As a research fellow in Dr. Zhou's lab, my other responsibility includes the management of IT staffs in the lab.

I got my PhD degree in Tsinghua University and my thesis was on the brain stimulation related intracranial recording.

Dr. Fang Ji

As a Post-doc, I am responsible for the development and application of advanced diffusion MRI models for the purpose of isolating the complex pathologies in the mixed neurodegenerative and vascular disease. These methods could help to develop non-invasive biomarkers for differential diagnosis and disease monitoring.

I obtained my PhD in Integrated Biology and Medicine at Duke-NUS (Singapore). My PhD research work focused on examining the spatiotemporal cascade of neuropathological events in dementia progression using multimodal neuroimaging assays such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional brain MRI, and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).

Dr. Joanna Su Xian Chong

As a research fellow at Dr Helen Zhou's lab, I am involved in projects examining the influence of age and various disease pathologies (such as cerebrovascular disease, amyloid-β and tau) on cross-sectional and longitudinal functional and structural brain changes. The long-term goal of my research is to advance knowledge on the brain mechanisms underlying age-related and pathological-related cognitive decline, as well as to develop non-invasive biomarkers to detect early brain changes and predict future cognitive decline and neurodegeneration in elderly individuals.

I recently received my PhD in Integrated Biology and Medicine at Duke-NUS Medical School, also under the supervision of Dr Zhou. For my PhD thesis, I investigated the differential effects of Alzheimer's disease and cerebrovascular disease on brain functional and structural network changes. In addition, I applied advanced functional connectivity measures to examine ageing-related functional network organization changes in elderly individuals.

Research Scientists


Dr. Zhang Yichi

As an expert in industrial vision systems, I hope to extend my expertise in image processing, computer vision and machine learning algorithms to the field of neuroimaging during the career of research fellow. I am interested in detection of anomalous regions in multimodal neuroimaging to recognise potential diseases at an early stage. I'd also like to delve into regression models of certain brain indices based on multimodal neuroimaging.

I obtained my PhD in Electronic Engineering from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). My doctoral research interests include image/video processing techniques such as quality assessment, registration, retargeting, saliency detection and segmentation. After graduation from CUHK, I joined TCL Corporate Research (Hong Kong) as a senior computer vision engineer specializing in traditional computer vision and deep-learning based algorithms for automatic defect detection of commercial products.

Dr. Li Ruilin

My research focuses on generative models, multi-modality learning, self-supervised learning, and its application in brain signals such as brain-to-audio decoding. Prior to this, my PhD topic was about transfer learning and EEG signal classification within different EEG paradigms. Besides, my research interests also involve human factor and time-serie forecasting. Google Scholar

Dr. Niousha Dehestani

My current research focuses on predictive modeling using brain structure and function, emphasizing reproducible and sustainable AI algorithms to inform clinical outcomes. I am investigating the biological mechanisms that enhance the performance of these predictive models. As a research fellow in Dr. Zhou's lab, I am responsible for developing new multimodal predictive models that are generalizable and sustainable, with the potential to translate into clinical practice to improve diagnosis and intervention. Additionally, I am managing a project to create a global brain database that integrates data from diverse populations.

Visiting Basic/Clinician Scientists


Dr. Chenhao Wang
Radiology Residency of SGH

As a MD-PhD graduate from Duke-NUS, I am interested in the study of longitudinal brain changes using multimodal neuro-imaging techniques. Currently, I am also helping in projects of developing imaging biomarkers to diagnose psychiatric conditions.

I graduated with B. Chem Eng from NUS. Neuroscience is one of the fastest growing area in medicine and there are still lot of questions to be answered. I am very excited about coming research opportunities in our lab.


Dr. New Fei Ho
Psychiatry Residency of IMH

I am a visiting fellow and collaborate with Dr. Helen Zhou's lab on various projects, including morphometry and connectivity analyses on subjects with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and ADHD.

I obtained my PhD in Pharmacology from the National University of Singapore and did my postdoctoral training under the Psychiatric Neuroimaging and Schizophrenia Clinical and Research Programs, Massachusetts General Hospital; Harvard Medical School.



Dr. Nicodemus Edrick Oey
National University Hospital

My name is Nico and I am a Rehabilitation clinician-scientist who was a former student and is a current collaborator of Prof. Helen Zhou with a passion for tailoring precision neuromodulatory therapies in rehabilitation of acquired brain injury and neurodegenerative disease.

My PhD thesis was on the molecular mechanisms of long-term memory formation at the single-cell level, and I am now involved in projects that use multimodal imaging and EEG to unravel the key factors determining functional recovery from conditions such as post-stroke motor, language and cognitive impairments, with a view to expand this knowledge to halt the progression of vascular dementia.