Yasmine Bassil, PhD

Research Leadership

• Proposed and built a multi-year research program from the ground up: defining scope, structure, and operations to study aging and spatial cognition; secured $260K in competitive funding (NSF GRFP, NIH T32). Culminated in a dissertation defense and 7 peer-reviewed publications; now expanding into an interdepartmental, cross-species, multi-institution initiative.
• Spearheaded building lab operational infrastructure: documentation systems (meeting agendas and schedules, storage drives, data and computational servers, lab wiki), standard operating procedures (method-specific protocols, room and equipment maintenance), and continuity protocols (onboarding, transitions).
• Built community partnerships (Decatur Active Adults, Emory's Goizueta Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, local outreach) to create a recruitment database of 110+ older adult participants; served as primary contact and onboarded 5+ partner labs to use and contribute to it.

Mentorship

• Directed a 16-member research team across 6 years: mentored trainees to produce 9 presentations at local and national conferences (including 5 awards), 4 published theses (2 Highest Honors, Emory; 2 Research Option certificates, Georgia Tech), and 5 competitive fellowships (including Fulbright, DAAD-RISE, and the Georgia Tech President's Undergraduate Research Award).
• Managed up to 4 concurrent sub-studies (including deliverables, timelines, and operating plans), running weekly cross-project meetings to align on milestones, evaluations, and risk mitigation.

Technical Infrastructure

• Developed novel neuroimaging methodology (concurrent TMS-fMRI) and co-developed a GUI-based neuroimaging workbench (MR.Flow) with Claude Code, owning front-end and UX/UI design and establishing shared imaging capability as an institutional resource at Emory and across the Atlanta scientific community.
• Built program-related technical infrastructure, including a city-scale VR environment built in Unity (NavCity), clinical assessments, and data visualization and analysis pipelines (Python, R, bash/zsh), open-sourcing all tools via 7 lab-wide GitHub repositories and sharing research datasets via OSF, in line with FAIR data-sharing principles.
• Helped develop and formalize lab policy for responsible AI tool adoption (codified in the lab wiki): expert-in-the-loop review of all AI output and intentional, testable use; coached mentees on AI use and its limitations.

• Proposed and established the Internal Affairs Lead role on the Executive Board of Arabs in Neuroscience (AiN) — an international community connecting Arab neuroscientists and allies worldwide — after identifying an unmet need to communicate with the membership.
• Pitched and led organizational restructuring for the nonprofit: redesigned internal structure into a 3-tier membership model, established communications from senior leadership to members (biweekly reports, newsletters), and defined roles, responsibilities, and documentation protocols.
• Co-led planning and execution of the organization's first-ever conference social at the Society for Neuroscience meeting: independently managed venue logistics, presentation materials, and running the on-site event.

• Served as primary stakeholder liaison between 100+ PhD students and program leadership, managing a 22-member executive board across 12 positions and directing 10+ annual program events.
• Rebuilt organizational operating infrastructure from scratch: established the first internal documentation system, defined officer roles and transition protocols for continuity risk mitigation, implemented recurring meeting cadences, and developed operating plans and budget infrastructure — sustaining long-term institutional relationships beyond any single leadership term.
• Founded (2020) and moderated the program-wide Neuroscience student Slack workspace: structured channels for announcements, new-student onboarding, events, professional development, and research discussion to sustain community, including through the pandemic.

• Led the Annual Events Committee to plan and execute cross-institutional programming for 80+ trainees & faculty across Georgia Tech and Emory, including an all-day Research Expo, new member orientation, and annual retreats.
• Led the organization of the annual Advisory Board Visitation Day — coordinating logistics for 50+ faculty, board members, and trainees, presenting directly to senior leadership and moderating a live Q&A that required balancing trainee and institutional interests; represented the program at ABRCMS 2022, recruiting prospective trainees.

• Co-led a 17-member DEI committee across 3 subcommittees and 2 faculty representatives, representing Neuroscience on the division-wide committee and serving as institutional liaison between stakeholder groups — students, faculty, and Laney Graduate School administration.
• Led program-level change management: conducted admissions review to identify and reduce bias, revised curriculum modules for neurological inclusivity, and partnered with Emory's DEI office to launch a new unconscious bias certificate training program adopted program-wide; also launched an external financial-advising partnership funding 30 one-on-one sessions for students.

• Established and directed the first-ever Brainhack ATL (part of Brainhack Global), building and leading a 13-member interdisciplinary organizing committee spanning 3+ Atlanta research institutions, coordinating academic and industry stakeholders to design and execute a 3-day computational neuroscience hackathon.
• Managed external sponsor relationships, securing $35,000 from 8 corporate and institutional sponsors (including NVIDIA, AWS, and the GSU Research Foundation); created 3 neuroimaging project tracks, recruited 6 faculty speakers, and attracted 90+ applications from 10 institutions across the U.S. and internationally, selecting 32 attendees via a scoring rubric.