About

Hi! I'm Ismael, a fourth-year undergrad at the University of Chicago studying Statistics and Computer Science. I'm passionate about understanding the brain and leveraging neurotechnology to improve lives.

My research interests lie at the intersection of neuroscience and deep learning. I believe the success of foundation models in NLP can translate to neural data; over the next decades, models that generalize across tasks and subjects will enable practical BCI applications, from direct machine interfaces to clinical therapies for mental disorders. I'm fascinated by both the science and its potential for impact.

In my spare time, I love playing tennis and volleyball, rock climbing, hiking, drinking copious amounts of coffee, and searching for the best chocolate croissant.

Experience

  1. Dec 2026 — Mar 2027

    Research Engineer Intern · Karavela

    Will work on fMRI foundation models.

  2. Jun 2026 — Sep 2026

    Research Engineer Intern · Stealth

    Worked on CAD foundation models.

  3. May 2024 — Dec 2025

    Undergraduate Researcher · Nogueira Lab ↗

    Grossman Center for Quantitative Biology and Human Behavior

    Developed continuous-time RNNs to model neural dynamics and information processing. Analyzed human electrophysiology recordings (Fried Lab, UCLA) using ML models to find neural correlates of concepts and characterize their representational geometry. Investigated cortical representations of context priors across brain areas in mouse decision-making using IBL neural data.

  4. Sep 2024 — Aug 2025

    TPCN Scholar · Training Program in Computational Neuroscience ↗

    NIH-funded

    Year-long training in computational neuroscience through seminars, mentored research, and scientific dissemination. Built an end-to-end representational geometry pipeline for IBL ephys data.

Publications & Talks

  1. Oct 2025

    TPCN Scholar Research Talk

    "The Geometry of Representations of Latent Context Priors in the Mouse Brain During a Decision-Making Task"

    University of Chicago Research Seminar

  2. Jan 2025

    Neuroscience and AI Workshop

    "Geometry of Representations of Movie Characters across the Human Cortex"

    Flash Talk

Projects

Activities

  1. Aug 2025 — Present

    Founder & President · UChicago Neurotech

    Recruited and organized founding board, secured access to EEG headsets for brain-computer interface projects. Creating EEG modeling curriculum and leading team submission in the 2025 NeurIPS EEG deep learning challenge for cross-task and cross-subject generalization.

  2. Sep 2024 — Present

    Director of Projects · AI@UChicago

    Organize quarter-long ML competitions and hackathons. Led Zero-to-LLM project implementing transformers from scratch with NumPy. Currently leading a project to fine-tune LLMs for course recommendations based on student reviews. Design curriculum for 30+ members to learn practical machine learning.

  3. May 2025 — Present

    Chair of Clients · UChicago Techteam

    Oversee all nonprofit client partnerships, managing board members to source clients for student-led software development projects. Recruited and onboarded 150+ student contributors. Secured partnerships with Hope Chicago, the Inclusive Design Institute, and HOME Chicago.

Awards

  • Pear Prime Engineer — 2026, 20 selected from 400 applicants
  • Quad Undergraduate Research Scholar — 2025–26
  • Robert Maynard Hutchins Scholar — 2024–25, top 10% of class
  • Dean's List — 2023–25
  • National Merit Scholarship — 2023, 1 of 2500 nationally
  • Outstanding Science Student Award — 2023, 1 out of 200
  • MO High School Tennis Class I Doubles State Champion — 2023
  • Rensselaer Medal for Math and Science — 2022, 1 out of 200