Senior Scientist
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Brian Levine, Ph.D., C.Psych., ABPP-cn, FRSCSenior Scientist, Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Health Sciences
Professor of Psychology and Medicine (Neurology), University of Toronto Dr. Brian Levine obtained his Ph.D. in 1991 from the University of South Florida and completed fellowships in clinical neuropsychology at McLean Hospital in Boston and cognitive neuroscience at the Rotman Research Institute. He has published over 200 peer reviewed scientific articles and chapters on memory, frontal lobe function, traumatic brain injury, aging, dementia, and rehabilitation as well as Mind and the Frontal Lobes: Cognition, Behavior, and Brain Imaging (2012, Oxford University Press) and Goal Management Training™ intervention for executive deficits (with Ian Robertson and Tom Manly). He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and Association for Psychological Science and recipient of the 2015 International Neuropsychological Society's Benton award for mid-career research achievement. In 2025, Dr. Levine was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and he received the Edith Kaplan Award from the Massachusetts Neuropsychological Society. He has obtained over $10 million in grant funding as a principal investigator. Dr. Levine's trainees have achieved outstanding success in obtaining external funding and positions in academia, clinical, government, and industrial settings. Dr. Levine, a board-certified neuropsychologist, is clinically active, providing expert opinions in cases involving brain injury, dementia, and psychiatric disorders. Dr. Levine is frequently called upon to communicate research findings to health professionals and the general public. He has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, CBC radio, USA Today, Psychology Today, Scientific American Mind, Wired, New York Magazine, and Discovery Health. |
Postdoctoral Fellows
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Ryan Yeung, Ph.D.I completed my PhD at the University of Waterloo in 2022, studying memories that spring to mind involuntarily. Known as recurrent or intrusive memories, I found that these memories were surprisingly common in daily life. Importantly, properties of these memories were systematically related to individual differences. For instance, the emotional quality and the content (i.e., what people report remembering) of these memories significantly predicted symptoms of mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD. In my postdoc, I hope to build on my past work by investigating cognitive and neural mechanisms of why emotional memories persist or fade away. I am particularly interested in hypotheses that emotional memories are enhanced due to their strong ability to evoke mental imagery; as such, emotional remembering might be modulated by individuals’ trait-level abilities to generate such imagery. Other research interests of mine include computational methods of analyzing autobiographical memories, such as natural language processing and machine learning. Outside of research, I’m a fan of hipster music, hipster tabletop role-playing games, and insisting that I’m not actually a hipster.
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Rotem Paz, Ph.D. I completed my PhD in neuroscience in the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, where I studied the cognitive and neural implications of a rare genetic mutation causing early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Prior to that, I earned an MA in clinical psychology and neuropsychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Haifa, Israel. As a clinical psychologist and neuropsychologist with a background in neuroscience, I am deeply interested in how early experiences and memories shape the brain, biological processes, personality, and subjective experience. My previous work has focused on investigating neurodegenerative diseases that impact memory, as well as developing interventions for mental health disorders using multimethod approaches. In my current postdoctoral research with Dr. Brian Levine at Baycrest and Dr. David Moscovitch at the University of Waterloo, my goals are: (1) to examine the role of autobiographical memories in fostering resilience or, conversely, increasing vulnerability to various forms of psychopathology; and (2) to develop intervention and prevention strategies that target memory processes to reduce psychological distress and promote well-being in individuals with mental health disorders. Outside of my research, I enjoy quality time with my children and family, diving into books, practicing Yoga and appreciating all kinds of art. |
Graduate Students
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Xuan Zhang, B.Sc.I graduated with an Honours B.Sc. in Psychology from the University of Toronto. My undergraduate thesis explored computational modeling in category learning under the supervision of Dr. Michael Mack, and investigated the effects of brain modulation and prior knowledge on learning, supervised by Dr. Asaf Gilboa. I subsequently worked as a lab manager with Dr. Rosanna Olsen, where I studied the longitudinal changes in cognition associated with aging through comprehensive neuropsychological assessments. These diverse research experiences have deepened my passion for memory research, particularly in understanding how previous experiences influence the encoding and retrieval of future events. In my graduate studies, I aim to extend this research by investigating the role of sleep as a key mechanism in memory consolidation, using multi-modal neurological measures such as EEG, fMRI, and MEG to explore how experiences are solidified and transformed within different memory systems. I am eager to begin my Ph.D. journey, where I hope to uncover the impacts of sleep on memory and explore potential applications of this research in supporting individuals with cognitive decline. Outside of the lab, I am an avid karaoke singer and ballet enthusiast—feel free to reach out if you share a love for singing!
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Shikang Peng, M.A.I earned my M.A. in Social Science-Psychology from the University of Chicago, working with Dr. Wilma Bainbridge and Monica Rosenberg. Before that, I completed my Honors B.Sc. in Psychology at the University of Alberta under Dr. Peter Dixon. During my master’s, I explored the predictability of attention and memorability neural pattern on memory performance using fMRI, and image memorability’s impact on social media virality using machine and deep learning. My undergrad thesis focused on cognitive coupling—how attention and reading work together—while my independent study, supervised by Dr. Peggy St Jacques, examined the impact of dimensionality on memory using VR. These experiences shape my research interests into episodic memory and perception. As I begin my Ph.D., I’m hoping to pursue these two directions using fMRI and my machine learning experiences. Outside the lab, I’m a novel enthusiast and a role-playing game fan, often found getting lost in a good book or battling fictional foes.
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Daniella Rafla, B.A. I graduated with a B.A in Neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania where I worked in Dr. Michael Kahana’s lab for two years as an undergraduate research assistant, and upon graduating for two more years as a full time research specialist. Under Dr. Kahana's supervision, I studied how the organization of memory for wordlists changes across days. In this work, I present evidence in support of the idea that the experience of retrieval itself gets encoded. In my graduate studies, I aim to delve deeper into the content of episodic memories using fMRI. I am especially interested in exploring individual differences in mental imagery and how these differences affect mechanisms of memory retrieval. Outside of my research, I enjoy reading, improving my Spanish, and playing tennis.
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Summer Students
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DeeDee Ng
I am a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto double-majoring in Psychology and Neuroscience, with a minor in Applied Data Science. I am interested in studying the neural mechanisms underlying memory vividness, and how it informs our understanding of conditions like Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Under Dr. Levine's supervision, I am studying the oculomotor component of emotional memories by eye-tracking, hoping to understand episodic memory through a physiological perspective. Outside of research, I enjoy going to the gym, café-hopping and hanging out with friends.
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Leo Zhang
I am graduating with an Honours BSc Psychology at the University of Waterloo. I am greatly interested in the different stages of memory functions, such as encoding, retrieval, and extinction. I am particularly interested in how memory is involved in, integrated with, and influenced by other cognitive functions, especially emotions, and how different brain regions work together functionally to achieve these interactions. I had some experience in working with mouse samples to investigate neuronal activity with immunostaining to study delayed fear conditioning and extinction at the System Neuroscience Lab in Tohoku University, Japan. I am also currently remotely helping Dr. Snyder from UBC to do some simple immunostain imagery analysis work to study contextual fear conditioning and retrieval. Generally speaking, I had little experience working with human beings, but it does not mean I am not interested in humans. Actually, most studies on mice were primarily intended to better understand human beings through approaches that are likely to be difficult or impossible to conduct in humans. I hope we can generalize the findings to humans reliably and creatively, since there are still a lot of barriers and gaps in between. My goal is to be able to enroll in grad school next year, since I failed this year. I enjoy listening to music, watching anime, and playing games; life is simple to me.
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Myra Leblanc
I am a graduating Honours Psychology student at Ontario Tech University, specializing in Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Under the supervision of Dr. Shane, my research has explored the neural underpinnings of psychopathy, specifically how reduced structural connectivity in key social-emotional white matter tracts relates to psychopathic traits. Beyond my thesis, I served as the Lab Manager for the Clinical Affective Neuroscience Laboratory for Discovery and Innovation (CANdiLab). In this role, I aided in streamlining research by developing an automated MRI preprocessing pipeline and centralized R-based scoring scripts. While my background is rooted in affective neuroscience, I am eager to pivot my focus toward the mechanisms of memory. Outside of the lab, I enjoy baking, listening to The Smiths, and reading Kafka!
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Research Assistant
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Michael Lochner, B.Sc.
I graduated from York University, where I received a Specialized Honours B.Sc. in Psychology. I completed an independent research project and my undergraduate thesis with Dr. Asaf Gilboa and my fellow lab colleague Xuan Zhang where we explored the possible impacts of anodal stimulation (using HD-tDCS) upon semantic knowledge integration ability. During my time as lab manager of Dr. Mead's Well-Being Research Lab at York University, I previously completed various literature searches, coding tasks, coordinated lab activities and conducted in-person testing sessions. With these experiences, I aim to continue into graduate school studies within clinical psychology or cognitive neuroscience domains, in hopes of becoming a contributor to both research and clinical work. Outside of lab work and research, I enjoy jogging, journaling and novel reading.
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