Yasmine Bassil
Cognitive neuroscientist specialized in spatial navigation and aging, with strong computational skills. Established a novel navigation research arm — developed VR paradigms, pipeline orchestration for neuroimaging analyses, and reproducible open-source analysis workflows. Led a 13-member research team while managing a 125+ participant research program and serving as Co-President of a 120+ member neuroscience PhD student community.
Seeking research and leadership roles in neuroscience and related fields within industry.
Skills
Experience
Research Leadership & Execution
- Led dissertation research identifying behavioral and neural mechanisms of aging-related spatial navigation deficits, using VR, fMRI, and concurrent TMS-fMRI across 120+ recruited participants.
- Directed 15+ members of Navigation Team over 6 years (7 undergraduate, 6 doctoral students), establishing weekly meetings and tracking tasks & milestones across 8+ concurrent sub-studies.
- Established concurrent TMS-fMRI as institutional research capability through Emory's Center for Systems Imaging Core, expanding methodology access for broader Atlanta neuro community.
Technical Infrastructure & Tools
- Directed build of immersive city-like VR navigation task in Unity; open-sourced on GitHub.
- Co-developed MR.Flow, a custom neuroimaging pipeline integrating fMRIPrep, FreeSurfer, and FSL with user-friendly GUI, replacing multi-step manual workflows.
- Created standardized analysis pipelines (Python, R) for Navigation Team reproducible protocols.
- Organized lab GitHub infrastructure (7 repositories), increasing accessibility of tools for internal and external researchers.
- Led 22-member executive board across 12 leadership positions, serving as primary liaison between 120+ PhD students and program leadership. Organized 10+ annual program events.
- Transformed organizational infrastructure by establishing first internal documentation system, defining officer responsibilities, operationalizing role transitions, implementing regular leadership meetings (weekly co-chair, monthly full board), creating budget infrastructure, and instilling biannual recognition initiatives for officer contributions.
- Led 13-member interdisciplinary organizing committee across multiple Atlanta research institutions to plan 3-day computational neuroscience hackathon for 30+ accepted attendees.
- Secured $35,000 in sponsorships, created 3 neuroimaging project tracks, recruited 6 faculty speakers, and attracted 90+ applications from 9 academic and professional institutions.
Education
Funding
Honors
Mentorship
Directly mentored 15+ trainees (high school, undergraduate, & doctoral students), resulting in:
- 5 award-winning presentations at institutional and regional conferences.
- 2 completed Honors Theses with Highest Honors designations at Emory University.
- 2 completed Research Option Certificates with published thesis at Georgia Tech.
- Multiple competitive fellowships, including Fulbright, DAAD-Rise, Georgia Tech President's Undergraduate Research Award, Emory Pathways Center Internship Funding, & 100 Senior Honorary Award by Emory Alumni Association & Student Alumni Board.
Publication Highlights
Bassil, Y., Kanukolanu, A., Funderburg, E., Cui, E., Brown, T., & Borich, M. (2025). Distinct aging-related profiles of allocentric knowledge recall following navigation in an immersive, naturalistic, city-like environment. PsyArXiv. (under review at Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience)
Bassil, Y., Kanukolanu, A., Funderburg, E., Brown, T., & Borich, M. R. (2025). Formation of allocentric representations after exposure to a novel, naturalistic, city-like, virtual reality environment. Neuropsychologia, 109290.
Woolgar, A., Feredoes, E., Assem, M., Bassil, Y., Bergmann, T. O., Beynel, L., ... & Sack, A. T. (2025). Consensus guidelines for the use of concurrent TMS-fMRI in cognitive and clinical neuroscience. Nature Protocols, 1-17.
Authored 6 publications (1 in review), 23 poster presentations (11 self-presented), and 2 platform presentations (1 self-presented), winning a total of 6 presentation awards.