Team
Principal Investigator
Dr. Niccolò Bonacchi
Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor of Biology and Neuroscience
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About Niccolò Bonacchi
Niccolò Bonacchi is an Assistant Professor at ISPA - Instituto Universitário, where he teaches graduate courses in experimental programming and neurobiology. His professional highlights include:
- Ph.D. in Neuroscience (Nova University of Lisbon | ITQB), developed at the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown (CCU), focused on neural representation of spatial objectives, olfactory cues, and predictive coding
- Development and contribution to Bonsai-RX, an open-source visual programming language extensively used for behavioral and neuroscience research
- Data Architect at the International Brain Laboratory (IBL), leading the development of experimental data acquisition and management systems
- Data Architect of the COGITATE consortium, developing standards for experimental metadata ontology and promoting FAIR data-sharing practices
Niccolò's research interests lie at the intersection of cognitive, behavioral, and computational neuroscience, emphasizing precise behavioral quantification, data analysis, and open science.
Graduate Students
Miriam Oliveira Leal (DVM)
PhD Student - Behavioral Biology
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ORCID
Research focus: Multidimensional pain assessment in pinnipeds (seals and sea lions)
Master's Students
Beatriz Simões
Master's Student - Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience
LinkedIn
Research focus: Political decision-making
Beatriz is a Master student of the Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Masters course at Ispa - Instituto Universitário. Beatriz holds an undergraduate course in Political Science by ISCSP - University of Lisbon and is currently a political advisor for education and science for the Social Democratic Party’s Parliamentary Group, that supports the current government. Before that she was a research intern at ITQB Nova, in the Proteomics of Non-Model Organisms Lab, where she employed an array of biochemistry methodologies, such as flow cytometry and fluorescence microscopy. Her scientific interests entail different levels of analysis, by applying an interdisciplinary focus to understand behavioral phenomena. With a background in cellular biology research and an undergraduate course in PolSci, the work she develops in the Master thesis bridges two areas of knowledge concerning political decision making and its neural correlates. She has published 2 articles in peer reviewed journals as co-author.
Isabel Gaspar
Master's Student - Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience
LinkedIn
Research focus: Endocrine markers of pinniped (seals and sea lions) well-being
Undergraduate and Rotational Students
Alumni
Carlota Carreiras
Undergraduate Student - Biology
Research focus: Cogitate dataset fMRI analysis, neural correlates of attention
Joined the Masters in Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience at Ispa - Instituto Universitário
Maria Moreira
Rotational Student - Psychology
Research focus: Facial expression analysis - PyFEAT wrapper and default analysis development
Joined the Masters in Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience at Ispa - Instituto Universitário
Hugo Almeida
Rotational Student - Psychology
Research focus: Decision-making task development - Human IBL