Key research personnel

Managing Director

Dr. Andreas Ioannides is a neuroscientist with physics background. He started his research career in theoretical nuclear physics and worked in this field for over 10 years in the UK. In 1987 he expanded his research into the inverse problem in biomagnetism, within a few years moving his research work entirely to application studies of magnetoencephalography (MEG) in neuroscience. He made contributions to the biomagnetic inverse problem, pioneering new analysis methods of MEG data, including magnetic field tomography (MFT). In 1989, MFT produced the first millisecond by millisecond tomographic descriptions of brain activity and has remained the supreme method for accurate spatiotemporal localization producing significant new insights today on early processing of stimuli in the brain.

Dr. Ioannides had set up two theory teams in the UK (1988-1998). For three years (1995-1998) he had ran a theory team in the UK and headed in parallel the MEG laboratory at the Institute of Medicine, Jülich Research Center in Germany. As a team leader at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan (1998-2009), he established and headed the Laboratory for Human Brain Dynamics throughout its ten year life-time. During this period, he completed a series of pioneering applications and initiated numerous international collaborations. Since 2009, he has set up a new team in Cyprus, continuing some of the basic neuroscience work that started in Japan and building a multimodal approach to the exquisite MEG capabilities. His present research emphasis is on the translation of basic research results, often obtained with the most sophisticated and expensive equipments, to personalized health monitoring and clinical applications with inexpensive and widely available devices.

Dr. Ioannides has published well over 100 scientific papers, organized international conferences and special symposia and presented his work as invited and key note lecturer in numerous international meetings.

Senior Scientist / Chief Administrative Officer

Dr Lichan Liu is a neuroscientist with computer science and bio-physics background. Over the past 20 years, she has applied her computing skills on application studies in neuroscience research, gained expertise in all aspects of MEG and EEG experimentation and analysis, and multimodal integration of EEG/MEG with MRI, fMRI and DTI.

During her PhD work in UK (1991-1995), she had pioneered methods for analyzing single trial MEG data and was one of the first researchers who applied tomographic analysis to single trial data. She has published over 30 peer-reviewed journal papers, with most emphasis on single trial analysis.

After the completion of her PhD, she worked as a research fellow at the Institute of Medicine in Jülich, Germany (1995-1998) where the first whole-head MEG system was installed in Europe. This allowed her to apply the theoretical knowledge she gained from her PhD study to real data. Besides software development for MEG signal processing and imaging with emphasis on single trial analysis, she carried out application studies on the visual and somatosensory systems, with normal subjects and patients (schizophrenia and paraplegia).

From 1998 to 2000, she obtained the prestigious Theode fellowship to work at the Faculty of Science, McMaster University, Canada, where she had the opportunity to extend her MEG expertise and knowledge to EEG. She developed experimental and analysis techniques for EEG in her new laboratory and focused her research on short-term plasticity.

In 2001, she moved to Japan and worked as a staff scientist at the newly founded Laboratory of Human Brain Dynamics of RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Japan where the most advanced MEG and EEG system for that time was installed. During the period 2001 to 2009, she worked on a wide range of projects which included (1) Face affect recognition in normal and schizophrenic subjects (2) Influences of visual field presentation on brain responses and connectivity patterns (3) Brain activations during sleep in adults and babies (4) Neuronal activity related to planning and execution of saccades and tracking (5) Priming on occluded figure interpretation (6) Short-term plasticity following multiple digit frequency discrimination training (7) Comparison of MEG and fMRI localization accuracy in primary visual cortex (8) Brain responses in normal and paraplegic subjects.

From 2009, she moved to Cyprus to work as a senior scientist at the Lab for Human Brain Dynamics of AAI Scientific Cultural Services Ltd. She has continued her research on emotional face recognition with emphasis on how visual field influences emotional face perception, with application extended to subjects with dyslexia.

Senior Scientist / Director of Research Training Program

Dr. Vahe Poghosyan is a Senior Scientist and Director of Research Training Program at AAI Scientific Cultural Services Ltd. He received his B.Sc. (Computer Science) and M.Sc. (Mathematics) from Yerevan State University, Armenia (1997). Dr. Poghosyan studied for his Ph.D. while in parallel working as Technical Staff at the MEG laboratory at RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan (1998-2001). He received his Ph.D. in Biology from the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia (2001) and was promoted to staff scientist at RIKEN BSI (2002-2007). Dr. Poghosyan helped setting up the Laboratory for Human Brain Dynamics at AAI Scientific Cultural Services Ltd. in Cyprus, moving there in 2007. In addition to his main position of senior scientist at AAI Scientific Cultural Services Ltd., from 2007 to 2009 he was also a visiting researcher at RIKEN Brain Science Institute.

Dr. Poghosyan has expertise in all aspects of MEG/EEG research, including design and implementation of research protocols and procedures, and data acquisition, processing and analysis. He has a thorough knowledge of advanced MEG/EEG signal processing and analysis methods, and excellent understanding of the underlying theories. Throughout his career Dr. Poghosyan has developed signal processing and analysis methods, and programmed large number of neuroscience software tools.

Dr. Poghosyan has broad research interest in cognitive neuroscience, particularly focusing on the visual system and the neural mechanisms underlying attentional processes. He has relevant publications in the top journals of the field, such as Neuron, Neuroimage etc.

Research Technician / Software Developer

Mr. Constantinos Kourouyiannis received his B.Sc. in Computer Science from University of Cyprus in 2006 and M.Sc in Advanced Computer Science from University of Manchester (UK) in 2007. He had worked as a Special Scientist at the Department of Computer Science in University of Cyprus, and teached Computer Science in various high schools in Nicosia. Since 2012, he has been working in the Lab. for Human Brain Dynamics at AAI Scientific Cultural Services Ltd. as a research technician and software developer. He conducts research on human brain dynamics, and develops programs in R, Matlab, C++ for the lab.

Research Technician / Data Analyst

Ms. Tina Cleanthous received her B.Sc. in Physics in 2010 and M.Sc in Medical Physics in 2013, both from Department of Physics, University of Patras (Greece). Since 2013, she has been working in the Lab. for Human Brain Dynamics at AAI Scientific Cultural Services Ltd. as a research technician and data analyst. She specialises in non-invasive human brain measurements with precision and EEG data analysis.