I did my PhD at the intersection of Computational Neuroscience and Machine Learning, working with Fabian Sinz, where I used deep neural networks, latent variable models, and implicit neural representations, driving insights about functional properties of visual sensory areas.

Before my PhD, I did my bachelors in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in Malaysia, and then moved to Munich to pursue my masters in Neuroengineering at TU Munich.

These days, I am working on advancing data-driven medical solutions at Noselab, a medical startup pioneering a proprietary diagnostic platform to detect, assess, and classify molecular biomarkers through nasal secretion, bridging cutting-edge technology with impactful healthcare applications.

📅 Wanna have a chat? Find a time slot here—I'm always happy to brainstorm modeling ideas, discuss their derivation and implementation, or explore potential collaborations on modeling biological data.


News

Feb 2025

Very happy that our paper with Luca Baroni has been accepted as an Oral at ICLR 2025. Check it out on OpenReview. Also, very excited about LAMINR which was born out of this paper! 🚀

April 2024

I have joined Noselab as a Senior Data Scientist, working on data-driven medicine.

Feb 2024

Successfully defended my PhD with the title "Latent Variable and Implicit Models for Neural System Identification" (thesis can be found here).

Jan 2024

Arne Nix and I are invited, for the second time, to do the Intro to ML crash course at the Bridging the Technological Gap Workshop.

Dec 2023

Together with Alana Darcher we are organizing MLCoLearn, a NeuroML Meet-Up in Bonn, starting from Feb 2024.

Aug 2023

I have joined the iBOTS group in the iBehave Network as a Research Software Engineer/Consultant.

July 2023

Had a great time talking to a group of young minds from India, at Breathing Minds, about myths and facts about the brain. You can find the slides here.

May 2023

Our workshop "How can Machine Learning generate insights and theories in Neuroscience" is accepted at BCCN 2023. Led by Michaela Vystrčilová and myself. It's going to take place in Berlin on the 26th and 27th of September.

Jan 2023

Joint work with Konstantin Lurz "Bayesian Oracle for bounding information gain in neural encoding models" is accepted at ICLR 2023.


Selected Publications

Learning and aligning single-neuron invariances in visual cortex
Mohammad Bashiri *, Luca Baroni *, Ján Antolík, Fabian H. Sinz
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Bayesian Oracle for bounding information gain in neural encoding models
Konstantin-Klemens Lurz *, Mohammad Bashiri *, Edgar Y. Walker, Fabian H. Sinz
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Learning invariance manifolds of visual sensory neurons
Luca Baroni *, Mohammad Bashiri *, Konstantin Friedrich Willeke, Ján Antolík, Fabian H. Sinz
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The Sensorium competition on predicting large-scale mouse primary visual cortex activity
Konstantin F. Willeke *, Paul G. Fahey *, Mohammad Bashiri, Laura Pede, Max F. Burg, Christoph Blessing, Santiago A. Cadena, Zhiwei Ding, Konstantin-Klemens Lurz, Kayla Ponder, Taliah Muhammad, Saumil S. Patel, Alexander S. Ecker, Andreas S. Tolias, and Fabian H. Sinz
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A flow-based latent state generative model of neural population responses to natural images
Mohammad Bashiri *, Edgar Walker *, Konstantin-Klemens Lurz, Akshay Jagadish, Taliah Muhammad, Zhiwei Ding, Zhuokun Ding, Andreas Tolias, Fabian Sinz
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Generalization in data-driven models of primary visual cortex
Konstantin-Klemens Lurz, Mohammad Bashiri, Konstantin Willeke, Akshay Jagadish, Eric Wang, Edgar Y. Walker, Santiago A Cadena, Taliah Muhammad, Erick Cobos, Andreas S. Tolias, Alexander S Ecker, Fabian H. Sinz
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For a complete list of publications check out my Google Scholar profile.


Events

Lecture: Introduction to Machine Learning
MPI for Evolitionary Anthropology, Leipzig
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MLCoLearn Meet-Up (recurring): Collaboratively exploring applications of ML in Neuro research
iBehave, Bonn
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Workshop: "How can Machine Learning be used to generate insights and theories in Neuroscience"
Bernstein Conference 2023, Berlin
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Breathing Minds guest expert session: "Brain: Myths, Facts, and Careers"
Online
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Workshop: "Bridging the Technological Gap"
German Primate Center, Göttingen
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Teaching

iBOTS Workshop: Developing Data Analysis Projects with Python, Git, and Snakemake
Lead Instructor
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iBOTS Workshop: Intro to Data Analysis with Python and Pandas
Lead Instructor
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Crash Course: An Introduction to Machine Learning
Co-instructor with Arne Nix
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Uni Course: Probabilistic Machine Learning
Teaching Assistant
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Uni Seminar: Current Topics in Machine Learning
Student Suprevisor
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Uni Course: Data Science
Teaching Assistant
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