Brain Stimulation & Simulation Lab


University of Massachusetts Boston
Northeastern University

Faculty

Sumientra Rampersad is an Assistant Professor of Physics at UMass Boston and a Visiting Assistant Research Professor of Physical Therapy, Movement and Rehabilitation Sciences at Northeastern University. Sumientra received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Natural Sciences from the Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, completing theses at the departments of Applied Physics, Biophysical Chemistry, and Medical and Biophysics. After a period of traveling and teaching in Central America, she returned to Nijmegen to pursue a PhD at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre. In the Department of Neurology, she performed research on transcranial stimulation and finite element modeling under the guidance of Prof. Dick Stegeman and Dr. Thom Oostendorp. After working on simulations for a biomedical company, Sumientra started a postdoctoral position at Northeastern University’s Center for SPIRAL, under the guidance of Profs. Deniz Erdogmus and Dana Brooks. In 2019, she established the Brain Stimulation & Simulation lab as a Research Assistant Professor at Northeastern. She received her first NIH R21 grant as a PI, and was co-investigator on several NIH and NSF grants. In 2021, Sumientra started a tenure-track position at UMass Boston, where she continues to pursue brain stimulation research through computational modeling and human experiments. Additionally, she teaches PHYSIC 610: Special Topics in Medical Imaging, PHYSIC 114: Fundamentals of Physics II, and PHYSIC 172: Introductory Physics Lab for Life Sciences II. In 2023, Sumientra received an NIH R01 grant to investigate temporal interference stimulation, which has become one of her main research interests. Sumientra lives in Boston, where she enjoys latin dance, snowboarding and cake (lots of cake).

Staff & Students


Maciej Kos PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Psychology, Northeastern University
Period: Sep 2024 - (joined lab in Jun 2020 as PhD Personal Health Informatics)
Project: FOCI project

Reza Hajian
PhD Integrative Biosciences, UMass Boston
Period: Sep 2024 -
Project: TTF modeling, FOCI data analysis

Leila Zand
MS Physics, UMass Boston
Period: Feb 2025 - (joined lab in Dec 2023 as RA)
Project: UQ modeling, head model construction

Shenyou Fan
Research Assistant, UMass Boston
Period: May 2024 -
Project: TIS optimization, head model construction

Luke Pastore
MS Physics, UMass Boston
Period: Jun 2024 -
Project: Primate TIS modeling

Arianna Maddox
BS Biology, UMass Boston
Period: Mar 2022 -
Project: Head model construction

Lynna Truong
BS Pharmacy, Northeastern University
Period: Feb 2023 -
Project: TIME experiments, head model construction

Avaneesh Mohan
Research Assistant, UMass Boston
Period: Jun 2024 -
Project: Pediatric TTF modeling

Kurt Jancsy
BS Biology, UMass Boston
Period: Nov 2024 -
Project: Pediatric TTF modeling

Samantha Mosher
BS Bioengineering, Northeastern University
Period: Oct 2018 -
Project: Head model construction, TIME experiments

Siddarth Simon
BS Computer Engineering / Computer Science, Northeastern University
Period: Oct 2019 -
Project: Head model construction, quantification of segmentation edits

Nicole Kim
BS Behavioral Neuroscience, Northeastern University
Period: Feb 2023 -
Project: TIME experiments

Former Staff & Students

Armin Moharrer
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, UMass Boston. Period: Feb - Nov 2024. Project: TIS optimization. Next step: Software engineer at Google, CA.
Salman Nadeem
PhD Physics, UMass Boston. Period: Jan 2023 - June 2024. Project: TMS-test-retest simulations. Next step: PhD Biomedical Engineering at Western Sydney University, Australia.
Theo Favier
BS Physics, UMass Boston. Period: May 2022 - May 2024. Project: Head model construction. Next step: MS Astrophysics at Boston University, MA.
Manasa Krishnan
MS Data Science, Northeastern University. Period: Sep 2021 - Mar 2024. Project: TIME and FOCI administration.
Hazel Lim
BS Psychology, Northeastern University. Period: Feb 2023 - Apr 2024. Project: FOCI experiments.
Adam Luk
BS Mechanical Engineering, Northeastern University. Period: Oct 2023 - Jan 2024. Project: Head model construction, FOCI experiments.
Antony Arango
BS Pharmacy, Northeastern University. Period: Mar 2023 - Jan 2024. Project: TIME & ITEM experiments.
Tom Cahaly
BS Bioengineering, Northeastern University. Period: Feb 2023 - Dec 2023. Project: TIME & FOCI experiments.
Emerson Takata
BS Behavioral Neuroscience, Northeastern University. Period: Feb 2023 - Jul 2023. Project: TIME data analysis.
Sophia Dunkin
BS Psychology, Northeastern University. Period: Feb 2023 - Jul 2023. Project: FOCI experiments.
Zoia Okulova
BS Bioengineering, Northeastern University. Period: Oct 2021 - May 2023. Project: TIME experiments.
Arya Goyal
BS Electrical Engineering, Northeastern University. Period: Aug 2022 - Apr 2023. Project: TIME and FOCI administration.
Sarah Restad
BS Electrical Engineering, Northeastern University. Period: Jan 2022 - Dec 2022. Project: Modeling sulcus width.
Abiha Jafri
MS Biomedical Engineering, Brown University. Period: Nov 2020 - Jul 2022. Project: Head model construction, sEEG modeling.
Luca Wagner
BS Psychology, VU Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Period: Sep 2021 - Jun 2022. Project: TIME experiments, head model construction.
Benjamin Moss
PhD Physics, UMass Boston. Period: Sep 2021 - June 2022. Project: TIME experiments, head model construction, modeling sulcus width.
Abigail Giancola
Research assistant, Northeastern University. Period: May 2021 - May 2022. Project: TIME experiments.
Julia Pfluger
BS Psychology, Northeastern University. Period: Jan 2020 - May 2022. Project: TIME experiments.
William Peterson
BS Psychology, Northeastern University. Period: Jan 2020 - May 2022. Project: TIME experiments.
Amelia Orwant
Volunteer. Period: Dec 2019 - Sep 2021. Project: TIME experiments, head model construction.
Hao Chen
MS Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University. Co-advised with Prof. Dana Brooks. Period: Jan 2020 - Apr 2021. Thesis: Reconstruction of brain surface meshes using spherical harmonics.
Daniella Lu
BS Behavioral Neuroscience, Northeastern University. Period: Jan 2020 - Feb 2021. Project: Head model construction.
Johanna Wilson
BS Bioengineering, Northeastern University. Period: Oct 2018 - Feb 2021. Project: Head model construction.
Giovanni Hsieh
BS Bioengineering, Northeastern University. Period: Oct 2019 - Jan 2021. Project: Head model construction.
Dareck Hubbell
BS Psychology, Northeastern University. Period: Jan 2020 - Dec 2020. Project: TIME experiments.
Angelo Novielli
BS Behavioral Neuroscience, Northeastern University. Period: Oct 2019 - Aug 2020. Project: TIME experiments.
Simran Shah
BS Biomedical Engineering, University of Auckland, New Zealand. Period: Oct 2018 - Aug 2019. Project: Modeling sulcus width.