• Dr. Alexander Mark Weber, MSc, PhD (He / Him / His), Assistant Professor (Partner)

  

  Dr. Alexander Mark Weber is an Assistant Professor at UBC in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neurology, and an Independent Investigator at BC Children's Hospital Research Institute with the Brain, Behaviour & Development Theme. His research interests focus on developing specific and sensitive quantitative biomarkers of anatomical, functional and metabolic characteristics of brain health in newborns and children.
  Novel neuroimaging applications may further elucidate the underlying pathological mechanisms associated with neonatal encephalopathy, Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE), seizures, intercranial hemorrhage, or ischemic stroke. Early recognition and classification combined with brain interventions are key in the prevention or reduction of progressive and chronic lifelong disabilities such as cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and behavioural and learning disorders. Currently, objective neuroimaging markers of treatment responses are urgently needed to accelerate clinical trials and focus our search for effective treatments.

  

• Erhan Asad Javed (He / His / Him), Co-op Student (May 2025 - Present)

  

  Erhan was born in Karachi, Pakistan. He is a fourth-year student studying Mathematics & Data Science at UBC. He joined the lab in May 2025 as a co-op student, hoping to learn more about advanced machine learning in Python, neural networks and HTML/CSS. He is currently investigating the power-law / scare-invariance of fMRI signals, applying his skills in programming and data analysis. In his spare time, Erhan enjoys playing tennis, basketball, pickleball, hiking, Italian cooking and music.

• Isabel Wilson (She / Hers / Her), Research Assistant (September 2024 - August 2025)

  

  Isabel was born and raised in Metro Vancouver and did her undergrad at UBC in Integrated Sciences (Neuroscience and Statistics). To date, her work in neuroimaging has been through a cognitive science lens. She joined the Weber Lab in Sept 2024 because she wanted to learn how the human brain can also be studied as a complex biological system. She is excited to be involved in a project measuring the power-law characteristics of the fMRI signal. To relax, Isabel walks, runs, reads, and plays pickleball.

• Floria Lu (She / Hers / Her), Undergraduate Summer Student (May 2025 - August 2025); Undergraduate Volunteer Student (May 2024 - April 2025)

  

  Floria was born and mostly raised in Vancouver. She is currently a third-year Medical Laboratory Science undergraduate student at UBC. She joined the lab in May 2024, hoping to learn more about research and neuroimaging, while helping the lab improve upon various functions, such as writing and editing a lab manual; writing a mission/vision statement for the lab; learning how to build a lab website and improving the current one. In her spare time, Floria enjoys drawing, playing the piano, dancing, and watching Kdrama.

  

Alumni

• Serafima Ermolenko (She / Hers / Her), Undergraduate Summer Volunteer (Summer 2024)

  

  Sera was born in Pavlodar, Kazakhstan and lived in North Siberia, Russia before moving to Canada at the age of 6. She is a fourth year   undergraduate SFU student with two years in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry and two years in Computer Science. Sera joined the lab in May 2024. Her project involves creating a signal processing tool in python for fMRI data. In her spare time, Sera enjoys skiing, hiking, travelling and reading.

  

• Gavin Carmichael, Fourth year undergraduate in Integrated Sciences; Thesis project (September 2023 - April 2024)

  

  Gavin was born in Antofagasta, Chile and raised all over. He is in the last year of his undergraduate degree in Integrated Sciences at UBC. Gavin joined the lab in June 2023 to complete his undergraduate thesis. His project involves finding an appropriate quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) technique that can accurately measure cerebral venous oxygen saturation (CSVO2) in both superficial and internal cerebral veins of newborns.
  In his spare time, he enjoys reading, volleyball, soccer, travelling, and playing guitar.
  Publications:
  Carmichael TG, Rauscher A, Grunau RE, & Weber AM. The Application of Magnetic Susceptibility Separation for Measuring Cerebral Oxygenation in Preterm Neonates. Pediatric Research, March 2025

  

• Lydia Sochan (She / Hers / Her), Master's Student in Biomedical Engineering (September 2022 - June 2024)

  

  Lydia was born in the US, but has spent most of her life in Vancouver, BC. She completed her Bachelor of Medical Sciences in Biochemistry at the University of Western Ontario. While at UWO, she worked in two labs—the first working on machine learning models for age-related brain health and the second developing informatics software for mass spectrometry-based proteomics. She started her Master of Applied Science in biomedical engineering at UBC in the fall of 2022. Her research project concerns the relationship between excitatory-inhibitory neurotransmitters and brain criticality (the Hurst exponent). Lydia has also spent her last three summers working clinically with children with various neurodevelopmental disabilities, e.g. autism, ADHD, etc., at the University of Washington. Lydia’s hobbies include cooking and reading.
  Publications:
  Sochan L, Archibald J, & Weber AM. Does the Brain’s E:I Balance Really Shape Long-Range Temporal Correlations? Lessons Learned from 3T MRI. BioRxiv, April 2025

  

• Anna Zhu, MCISc (She / Hers / Her), Master's Student in Biomedical Engineering (August 2021 - August 2023)

  

  Anna was raised in Toronto, Ontario. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto with a double Major in Neuroscience and Molecular Biology. Shortly after, she began working in the provincial healthcare sector conducting analysis work. During this time, she also became a technical research assistant at the UHN Toronto Rehabilitation Institute (KITE Research Institute) with the Winter Lab under Dr. Geoff Fernie and Dr. Atena Roshan Fekr. Alongside work, she continued her academic studies and pursued a Master of Clinical Science at Western University. She joined the Weber Lab in May 2021 as a Master’s of Applied Science student in the School of Biomedical Engineering. Her project involves developing and investigating the cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen in newborns using advanced MRI methods such as quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) and arterial spin labelling (ASL).
  In her spare time, she enjoys ultimate frisbee, board games, hiking, cooking, and swimming.
  Publications:
  Zhu A, Chau C, Chan N, Chacko A, Holsti L, Grunau RE, & Weber AM. Regional Cerebral Metabolic Rate of Oxygen and Levels of Respiratory Support in Preterm Neonates. NMR in Biomedicine, April 2025

  

• Allison Mella (She / Hers / Her), Master's Student in Neuroscience (September 2021 - August 2023)

  

  Allison was born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Alberta with a Bachelor of Science with Honors in Neuroscience. Afterwards, she worked as a research assistant for Dr. Lawrence Richer in the Pediatric Autonomic Clinic at the Stollery Children's Hospital. She joined the Weber Lab in September 2021 for her Master's in Neuroscience in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC. Her project investigates the metabolic, functional and structural pathology of Rett Syndrome though using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques of magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), functional MRI (fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).
  In her spare time she enjoys reading, travelling, hiking and running.
  Thesis: Temporal complexity alterations of resting state fMRI in preterm versus term born infants
  Publications:
  - Drayne JP, Mella AE, McLean MM, Ufkes S, Chau V, Guo T, Branson HM, Kelly E, Miller SP, Grunau RE, & Weber AM. Long-Range Temporal Correlation Development in Resting-State fMRI Signal in Preterm Infants: Scanned Shortly after Birth and at Term-Equivalent Age. PLOS Complex Systems, December 2024; 1(4):e0000,024.
  - Mella AE, Vanderwal, Tamara, Miller, Steven P, & Weber, Alexander M. Temporal Complexity of the BOLD-Signal In Preterm Versus Term Infants. Cerebral Cortex, November 2024; 34(11).

  

• Olivia Campbell (She / Hers / Her), Master of Engineering Student in Biomedical Engineering (May 2021 - April 2022); Co-op Student (May 2020 - April 2021)

  

  Olivia was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario. She completed her undergraduate degree at UBC with a Combined Major in Life Science, Physics, and Computer Science. She joined the Weber Lab in April 2020 as a co-op student for two terms and stayed on part time as a Research Assistant. In May of 2021, she started her Masters of Applied Science in the School of Biomedical Engineering. Her project involves investigating the fractal nature of the BOLD signal of resting state functional MRI signals, and its clinical and neuroscience applications.
  In her spare time, she enjoys running, hiking, surfing, cross-wording, travelling, and puzzles.
  Publications:
  - Campbell O, Vanderwal T, & Weber AM. Fractal-Based Analysis of fMRI BOLD Signal During Naturalistic Viewing Conditions. Frontiers in Physiology, 2021; 12:809,943.
  - Campbell OL & Weber AM. Monofractal Analysis of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging: An Introductory Review. Human Brain Mapping, June 2022; 43(8):2693–2706.
  - Weber AM, Nightingale TE, Jarrett M, Lee AHX, Campbell OL, Walter M, Lucas SJE, Phillips A, Rauscher A, & Krassioukov AV. Cerebrovascular Reactivity Following Spinal Cord Injury. Topics in Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation, May 2024; 30(2):78–95.

  

• Johann Drayne (He / His / Him), Co-op Student (January 2021 - August 2021)

  

  Johann was born and raised in County Antrim, Ireland. He has completed three years of my undergraduate degree in Physics at UBC, with one more to go. Johann joined the Weber Lab in January 2021 as a co-op student. His project involves looking at the connection between sucrose treatment for preterms newborns and their fractal resting state fMRI behaviour.
  In his spare time, he enjoys running, walking, cooking, history, and electronics.
  Publications:
  Drayne JP, Mella AE, McLean MM, Ufkes S, Chau V, Guo T, Branson HM, Kelly E, Miller SP, Grunau RE, & Weber AM. Long-range temporal correlation development in resting-state fMRI signal in preterm infants: Scanned shortly after birth and at term-equivalent age PLOS Complex Systems, December 2024; 1(4):e0000,024