People

Mingbo Cai

Lab Director

mingbo [dot] cai [at] miami [dot] edu

Mingbo Cai (蔡明博) is an Assistant Professor at Department of Psychology, University of Miami. His interest includes the computational mechanism of learning and decision making, spontaneous thoughts, brain imaging analysis method, brain-inspired machine learning, and time perception. On the topics of human and machine learning, he is especially interested in how humans or machines can learn latent structure or “generative model” of the environment without direct supervision. He started the lab at International Research Center of Neurointelligence in the University of Tokyo in 2019 and moved to UMiami in 2024. Prior to these, he was a postdoctoral researcher in Yael Niv‘s lab at Princeton University, after obtaining his Ph.D. degree in Neuroscience from Baylor College of Medicine, working with David Eagleman and Wei Ji Ma, and B.S. degrees in Electronics and Psychology from Peking University.

Marco Aqil

Postdoctoral researcher

mxa6028 [a] miami [dot] edu

I completed my PhD at the Spinoza Centre for Neuroimaging in the group of Prof. Serge Dumoulin. I have an MSc in Mathematics from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and a BSc in Theoretical Physics from the University of Edinburgh. The key questions of my research concern the relationships between cortical dynamics, information-encoding, and subjective experience. I am particularly intrigued by the dialogical interplay between the sensory-visual dimensions of experience and their narrative, cognitive, emotional aspects. Primary results of my research include the framework of graph neural fields (Aqil et al. PLOS Comp Bio 2021) and the divisive normalization model of population receptive fields (Aqil et al. PNAS 2021).

Yanbin Xu

PhD student

yxx744 [a] miami [dot] edu

Yanbin Xu is a first-year Ph.D. student in Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience Division of Department of Psychology.  His current research focuses on the computational foundations of curiosity and its role in motivating active learning. He uses children’s egocentric video recordings as a lens to study their self-directed play, explore, and learn. More broadly, he seeks to understand how children efficiently learn about their physical environment and construct robust world models. Yanbin aims to design artificial systems capable of active learning that can acquire knowledge effectively even in data-limited settings.

Before joining the Cai Lab, Yanbin earned a B.A. in Neuroscience and Statistics from the University of Virginia. At UVA, he worked for two years as a research assistant with Dr. Jianhua Cang, investigating the computational mechanisms and behavioral implications of binocular integration.

Kevin Li

Master student

khl30 [at] miami [dot] edu

I recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer science from NYU. With a strong interest in the biomedical field, I am seeking opportunities that would bridge his computer science background with his graduate studies. I am now a graduate student specializing in neural engineering. Some hobbies of mine are computers and tennis.

Yu Fu

Research assistant

yxf545 [at] miami [dot] edu

Yuri holds a Master of Science in Data Science from the University of Miami and a Bachelor of Science in Applied Statistics. She specializes in statistical analysis, machine learning, data visualization, and computing. Her research focused on determining hearing thresholds from brain response data using convolutional neural networks. Currently, she works as an assistant at Cai Lab, supporting data processing tasks.

Yu Fu

Intern student

baig [dot] i [at] northeastern [dot] edu

My name is Iba Baig, I’m a fourth-year undergraduate from Northeastern University studying behavioral neuroscience/data science. I am currently working part-time as a research assistant on a computer vision and behavioral analysis project. My interests are in applying neuroscience and technology, such as brain-computer interactions, to aid research and healthcare.

Aakash Singh

Undergraduate student

axs8965 [at] miami [dot] edu

Aakash is currently an undergraduate student at the University of Miami. He is pursuing a B.S. in Psychology and Philosophy, with minors in Criminology, Political Science, Microbiology & Immunology. He is interested in understanding the cognitive processes behind spontaneous thoughts, perception, memory. On his free time, Aakash likes to practice violin, play video games, and spend time with his friends.

Danielle Pairot

Undergraduate student

dnp51 [at] miami [dot] edu

My name is Danielle Pairot, I am currently a Junior studying Neuroscience with a minor in Chemistry. I am very interested in brain plasticity and the cognitive aspects of neurodegenerative disorders. My focus is about advancing research in this area, understanding how these conditions affect the brain and exploring potential treatments to regain lost function. 

Hannah Pierce

Undergraduate student

hxp346 [at] miami [dot] edu

Ronald Dekker

Postdoctoral Researcher

Ron was a postdoctoral researcher in the Cai Lab in 2022-2023. His research focuses on how knowledge is represented in human and machine agents, and what consequences this has for learning and generalization. He is now at working for EY Japan as a data scientist. In his spare time, he is remotely collaborating with Mingbo Cai, Nicolas Schuck (University of Hamburg), and Quentin Huys (UCL) on the project he did at Cai Lab on decoding the semantic content and dynamics of spontaneous thought . Before coming to the Cai Lab, Ron received his Ph.D. from the University of Oxford, under the supervision of Prof. Christopher Summerfield. His Ph.D. work primarily involved understanding the effects of different training schedules on learning through large-scale online studies and using neural networks as a computational model.

Wei Chen

Collaborating PhD Student

Wei Chen is currently a collaborating graduate student from Yotsumoto lab, The University of Tokyo. His current research focuses on the computational modelling of decision making in schizophrenia and development of reinforcement learning throughout life span. Before coming to UTokyo, he obtained a B.E.Hons. from The University of Auckland, specialized in software engineering. At the moment, he is hosted at Yunzhe Liu‘s lab in Beijing Normal University

John Day

Research Assistant

John is currently a research assistant at the Cai Lab (remotely in Tokyo). He is originally from Detroit, Michigan, United States. He received his B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Michigan in 2020. He is interested in the relationship between artificial intelligence and natural intelligence. His current research involves developing and drawing insight from brain-inspired AI. He hopes to eventually pursue these research interests in graduate school. Besides research, John spends his free time working out, discovering new music, and teaching himself Japanese.

Aaron T. Nakamura

Research Assistant

aarontnakamura[at]ircn[dot]jp

Aaron Nakamura jointly works at Cai Lab, Nagai Lab, and Baby Lab. He has contributed to many projects at Cai Lab and has performed almost all the fMRI scanning. He is most actively contributing to the project on decoding spontaneous thoughts. He attended the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities for his graduate education in counseling psychology after earning his Bachelor’s degree in psychology with a minor in TESL (Teaching ESL). He has a background in working for youth at a mental health treatment center. His research focuses lie primarily in the fields of clinical, developmental, and cultural psychology. He is interested in examining the impact of Early Childhood Adversity (ECA), mainly child maltreatment, and alterations in brain structures/functions. He is also interested in investigating how people can formulate and stabilize one’s national, racial/ethnic, and cultural identity through ECA. He is also broadly interested in language acquisition.