AI researcher in Tehran. I study how spiking neural networks learn, and I come from in vivo neuroscience.

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Portfolio

Alireza Alikhani

Researcher in artificial intelligence and neuroscience

Tehran MMXXVI

Chapter the first

About

Now

I am an MSc candidate in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at Khatam University in Tehran. I want to know how networks of spiking neurons can keep learning over a long stream of tasks with only the signals they can reach: no backpropagation and no replay.

Before

Before the modelling I worked at the bench. I hold a BSc in cellular and molecular biology and worked in two Tehran labs on in vivo surgery and electrophysiology, in rodents and in songbirds. That is where my questions come from.

Next

I am looking for a PhD position in computational neuroscience or brain-inspired machine learning, starting between spring and September 2027.

Table I. In numbers
MSc grade average, coursework complete17.64 of 20
Stereotaxic surgeries for research projects200+
Thesis dueearly 2027
Available fromspring 2027
LanguagesPersian, English

Plate I

Common sense, imagination and memory, each lodged in its own cell of the brain. The scheme owes much to Ibn Sina’s account of the inner senses.

Gregor Reisch, Margarita Philosophica, Freiburg, 1503

Woodcut of a head in profile with the brain divided into labelled cells for common sense, imagination and memory
a b c

Plate I

The inner senses

  1. aCogitativa, thoughtNow
  2. bMemorativa, memoryBefore
  3. cImaginativa, imaginationNext

Chapter the second

Background

The bench

I started at the bench. At the Iranian National Center for Addiction Studies I did 200+ stereotaxic surgeries for research projects and trained new students, until COVID-19 closed the lab before my own dataset was finished. I used the closure to learn programming and worked as a backend developer on a national payment switch.

The model

Then I went back to neuroscience at IPM in Tehran, where I helped set up a songbird electrophysiology lab and implanted recording headstages in zebra finches. Since 2024 I have studied artificial intelligence, taught machine learning as a teaching assistant, and built the computational side of my research. Every closure pushed me toward the work that could continue.

Table II. Curriculum vitae, in short
Education
2024 to nowMSc, Artificial Intelligence and RoboticsKhatam University, Tehran
2018 to 2023BSc, Cellular and Molecular BiologyIslamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch
Research
2024 to 2025Research assistant, in vivo electrophysiologyIPM, School of Cognitive Sciences, Tehran
2019 to 2020Research assistant, surgery and behaviourIranian National Center for Addiction Studies, Tehran
Teaching
2025Teaching assistant, Statistical Pattern RecognitionKhatam University
2024Teaching assistant, Machine LearningKhatam University
Industry
2021 to 2022Backend developerAvreen Smart Solutions, Tehran
2020 to 2021CEOVista Mehr, family company
Training
2024, 2025Neuromatch AcademyComputational Neuroscience, then NeuroAI

In full

Download the full CV

Plate II

One of the first full-body anatomical figures from the Islamic world, with the nerves traced in coloured inks.

Mansur ibn Ilyas, Tashrih-i badan-i insan, Shiraz, about 1390; from a later copy

Persian manuscript drawing of a squatting human figure with the spine and the nerves drawn in red and green ink
a b c

Plate II

The nervous system

  1. aThe handThe bench
  2. bThe headThe model
  3. cThe spineThe record

Chapter the third

Research

The question

How do neurons keep learning with only local signals? I work on that question in spiking neural networks and in reinforcement learning, with controls and many seeds.

Interests

  1. § 1Credit assignment without backpropagation.
  2. § 2Homeostasis and loss of plasticity over long task streams.
  3. § 3Spiking networks and reinforcement learning.
  4. § 4Longer term: learning signals that go wrong, as in chronic pain.
Ink drawings of single nerve cells with branching dendrites, labelled with letters
Fig. 1. The neuron, drawn: injured Purkinje cells of the cerebellum, in ink, by Santiago Ramón y Cajal, 1914.

Stimulus

Rate0per second

Fig. 2. The neuron, recorded: a model neuron on the oscilloscope, its membrane potential over time, with a spike each time it crosses threshold. Turn the dial to change the stimulus.

Papers

Write-ups and code are available on request, and on GitHub.

Plate III

Frog legs wired to the sky twitch when lightning strikes: an early sign that nerve and muscle run on electricity.

Luigi Galvani, De viribus electricitatis in motu musculari, Bologna, 1791

Engraving of a walled terrace with a wire running down to frog legs laid on a table, and a jar set in a well
a b c

Plate III

Animal electricity

  1. aThe wire from the roofThe question
  2. bThe frog’s legsInterests
  3. cThe jar in the wellPapers

Chapter the fourth

Websites

The craft

Alongside research I design and build websites for clients: hand-built pages that load fast, read well on a phone and move the way this one did when it opened.

What I build

  • Company siteswho you are, what you offer
  • Portfoliosyour work, shown well
  • Landing pagesone page with one goal
  • Intro animationslike the one on this page

Demos

Client work stays private, so I show demos on request.

Ask for a demo

Plate IV

The coats and humours of the eye and the optic nerve behind it, after the Book of Optics, written around 1020.

Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), from a 16th-century Latin printing

Printed diagram of the eye in section, with its coats and humours labelled in Latin and the optic nerve below
a b c

Plate IV

The eye

  1. aThe corneaThe craft
  2. bThe muscles that move itWhat I build
  3. cThe optic nerveDemos

Chapter the fifth

Contact

Correspondence

Address correspondence about a PhD position, a project or a website to

alireza1379alikhani@gmail.com

Elsewhere

Plate V

Light enters the eyes, the message crosses the brain, and the arm points: an early picture of a signal travelling through a nervous system.

René Descartes, Treatise of Man, printed in 1664

Engraving of a figure whose eyes receive rays from an arrow, with lines running through the head to a pointing arm
a b

Plate V

From sight to gesture

  1. aThe eyesCorrespondence
  2. bThe pointing handElsewhere