Dr. Neda Nategh
Pioneering the intersection of neuroscience and engineering to understand visual perception
Biography
From Iran to Stanford to leading her own lab at the University of Utah, Dr. Nategh's extraordinary career showcases academic excellence and innovative research.
University of Utah Medical Center, home to Dr. Nategh's Vision Computation Lab
Early Life and Education in Iran
Born in Iran, Dr. Nategh demonstrated extraordinary academic ability from an early age, ranking #1 nationwide in Iran's 2001 university entrance exams for math/physics.
She earned her B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology in 2005.
Graduate Studies at Stanford University
Moving to the United States for graduate school, Dr. Nategh attended Stanford University where she earned:
- M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering
- M.Sc. in Statistics
- Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering (2013)
She further enhanced her neuroscience expertise at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, earning a certificate in Biophysics and Computation in Neurons and Networks.
Industry Experience and Innovation
During her academic journey, Dr. Nategh interned at Apple Inc. in the Camera Algorithms Group, where she co-invented a barcode detection method that was granted a US patent in 2013.
This showcases her powerful ability to apply theoretical knowledge to practical, real-world innovations.
Academic Career
Dr. Nategh began her faculty career as an Assistant Professor at Montana State University (2014-2017).
In 2017, she joined the University of Utah as an Assistant Professor with appointments in:
- Electrical & Computer Engineering
- Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences
- Biomedical Engineering
Vision Computation Lab
At the University of Utah, Dr. Nategh founded and leads the Vision Computation Lab at the John A. Moran Eye Center, where she focuses on integrating neuroscience and engineering to study visual perception.
She actively mentors Ph.D. students and collaborates across disciplines, fostering the next generation of researchers at the intersection of neuroscience and engineering.
Research & Contributions
Dr. Nategh's groundbreaking research explores how the brain maintains stable visual perception despite constant eye movements.
Eye tracking technology used in Dr. Nategh's research
Active Vision Research
Dr. Nategh studies active vision, investigating how the brain maintains stable perception despite frequent eye movements (saccades). Her approach combines neurophysiological experiments, recording spikes and local field potentials (LFPs) in behaving animals, with sophisticated computational modeling.
In 2017, she developed nonstationary models to capture time-varying neural responses, providing new insights into visual processing during eye movements.
Key Discoveries
Sensory Memory Across Saccades
Published in Nature Communications (2021), Dr. Nategh's research revealed that visual neurons exhibit sensory memory across saccades, an important mechanism for maintaining stabile perception.
Neural Correlates of Visual Mislocalization
In 2024, her lab published findings on the neural correlates of visual mislocalization illusions during saccades, helping us understand how the brain processes spatial information during eye movements.
Gain and Timing Modulation
Her lab explores how visual neurons modulate gain and timing around eye movements, important processes for maintaining visual stability in fast-changing environments.
Translational Applications
Dr. Nategh's research extends beyond basic science to translational applications, building biologically inspired algorithms for:
- Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs)
- Visual prosthetics for vision restoration
- Artificial vision systems with human-like capabilities
She uses deep convolutional neural networks to test vision processing hypotheses, bridging neuroscience and artificial intelligence.
Recognition and Impact
In 2021, Dr. Nategh was awarded a prestigious NIH R01 grant to study the neural code of dynamic vision, recognizing the significance and potential impact of her research.
Her work has implications for understanding and potentially treating neurological disorders with impaired visual integration, including ADHD, schizophrenia, and autism.
Dr. Nategh is known for her interdisciplinary impact, skillfully blending neuroscience, signal processing, and machine learning to advance the field's understanding of visual perception.
Course Connection
Dr. Nategh's research directly connects to key concepts in introductory neuroscience, showing us fascinating real-world applications of fundamental principles.
Neural Coding
Dr. Nategh analyzes spike trains to decode how neurons encode visual information, directly applying the concepts of population and temporal coding we learned about in lecture 8.
Her research provides real-world examples of how the brain uses rate coding, temporal coding, and population coding to represent visual stimuli.
Sensory Systems - Vision
Dr. Nategh's studies on perception during saccades directly relate to how the visual cortex processes input from a moving retina, which we covered extensively in module 10.
Her work shows how the visual system integrates information across different eye positions and compensates for self-generated motion.
Eye Movements & Visual Stability
Her research explains how the brain achieves perceptual continuity despite constant eye movements, another topic we covered in module 10.
Dr. Nategh's work gives offers us fascinating examples of how the visual system content we learned about in class can be applied in cutting-edge technology.