About Me

PhD Fellow | Visual Cognition Researcher | Cognitive Neuroscience

Welcome! My name is Mohammad Ahsan Khodami, also known as Eithan. You can read about the name roots here (click to see why I chose Eithan), which also helps you separate me from Ethan (as famous as Ethan Hunt).

Current Position

Prof. Luca Battaglini

I am a PhD Fellow Research at the Department of General Psychology at the University of Padua, Italy, working with Prof. Luca Battaglini. I secured prestigious PhD funding from Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (Horizon 2020) from November 2022 till November 2025.

Research Interests

Coming from an Engineering background, I have a passion for Vision, Visual processing speed, visual cognition, attention, emotion. I also conduct research on methodology and computational frameworks.

Academic Journey

Master's Degree - Cognitive Neuroscience

Ural Federal University, Russia

After my bachelor's, I moved to the medical field, focusing on medical imaging. As a Research fellow, I joined Ural Federal University under the Russian Open Door scholarship, becoming a prize winner among over 1000 international applicants in a 3-step competition.

I completed my Master's by research + research fellow in cognitive neuroscience, working in a hospital with children with ischemic stroke. My thesis focused on neuroimaging and cognitive studies on patients under age 18. I finished with a GPA of 4.7 out of 5 (top 5%). During this period, I also learned Russian and met my wife.

Research Assistant

2021 - August 2022 | LinguaMed, Russian Academy of Science

I worked as RA with multiple responsibilities including teaching and research.

PhD Research Fellow

2022 - 2025 | University of Padua, Italy

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

I became a PhD research fellow under the Uniphd program funded by EU Horizon 2020 and MSCA program, working with Professor Battaglini and Percup laboratory.

Collaboration with Harvard Medical School

May 2024 - Present

Professor Jeremy Wolfe

I started working with Professor Jeremy Wolfe, focusing on the role of emotion in visual search, computational understanding of visual attention, and visual search.

Visiting Scholar

April 2025 - Present | LMU Munich, Germany

Prof. Dr. Melissa Lê-Hoa Võ

I am currently working with Prof. Dr. Melissa Lê-Hoa Võ, immersing myself in the application of VR in vision search, scene grammar, and natural scene viewing, while working on computational and conceptual frameworks.

My Work

I have published several works which can be found on my publications page, developed Python packages, and created jsPsych works.