Nanda H Krishna – PhD Candidate at Mila & UdeM
My research interests lie at the intersection of Computational Neuroscience and Deep Learning. Through my theoretical research, I aim to uncover how learning shapes neural computation. I also work on foundation models for generalisable and real-time decoding in brain-computer interfaces.
| Dec 2025 | Presented POSSM and our work on multimodal neural decoding at NeurIPS 2025! 🧠 | |
| Jul 2025 | Our workshop on Foundation Models for the Brain and Body was accepted to NeurIPS 2025! 🎉 | |
| Apr 2025 | I co-organised the COSYNE 2025 Workshop on Foundation Models for Neuroscience. 🧠 | |
| Dec 2024 | Finally updated this website! 😅 | |
| Dec 2024 | Two abstracts accepted to COSYNE 2025 – one on generalisable and real-time BCI decoding and one on reinforcement learning for motor control. 🎉 |
I am a PhD Candidate supervised by Guillaume Lajoie at Mila – Quebec AI Institute and Université de Montréal. My research interests lie at the intersection of Computational Neuroscience and Deep Learning. I am specifically interested in developing a theoretical understanding of how learning shapes computation in brains and artificial neural networks. I also work on building foundation models for neuroscience, with the goal of improving decoding in brain-computer interfaces.
Aside from research, I am passionate about teaching, open science and open source software. Currently, I am an active maintainer of the Homebrew package manager for macOS (and Linux). Here are some of my other interests: languages, cricket, tennis, comics (manga and manhwa), music (mostly Carnatic, Indian film, and Asian), theatre, and quizzing.
Feel free to reach out if you are interested in collaborating, discussing research, or even just chatting!
Vancouver
Northern Lights in Québec
Friday Harbor
Seattle
Innsbruck
- PhD in Computer Science, Mila & Université de Montréal 🇨🇦, 2021–present
- BE in Computer Science & Engineering, SSN College of Engineering (Anna University) 🇮🇳, 2017–21
- Visiting Researcher @ ServiceNow Research 🇨🇦, 2025–26
- Research Intern @ Carnegie Mellon University 🇺🇸, 2020–21
- GSoC Student Developer @ Homebrew 🍺, 2020
- Research Intern @ IIITDM Kancheepuram 🇮🇳, 2019
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Teaching Assistant for IFT6135 Representation Learning at Université de Montréal, Fall 2022.
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Co-Instructor for the workshop on Dynamical Systems Analysis of Neural Networks, UNIQUE Student Symposium 2022.
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Mentored 20+ students in Python and Machine Learning projects at Solarillion Foundation, 2019–21.Materials
- Main Programming Languages: Python, Ruby
- Favourite Tools: PyTorch, Flask, Docker, Git, LaTeX, Inkscape
- Human Languages: English, Tamil, Hindi, Sanskrit, French, Korean, Japanese
- Best Poster Award, UNIQUE Scientific Retreat & MAIN, 2025
- Artificial Intelligence Scholarship, Université de Montréal, 2024–25
- AccelNet IN-BIC Research Exchange Fellowship, 2024
- J A DeSève Graduate Scholarship, Université de Montréal, 2024–25
- UNIQUE Conference Travel Grant for COSYNE 2024
- UniReps Gatsby Foundation Travel Grant for NeurIPS 2023
- IVADO Excellence Scholarship, 2022–24
- UNIQUE Excellence Scholarship, 2022–23
- Ranked 4th out of 15000+ students in Computer Science and Engineering, Anna University, 2017–21
- Gold Medal and Merit Scholarship, SSN College of Engineering, 2017–21
Volunteering
- Organiser of the Foundation Models for the Brain and Body Workshop at NeurIPS 2025.
- Organiser of the COSYNE 2025 Workshop "Building a foundation model for the brain: datasets, theory, and models".
- Member of the Student Recruitment Committee at Mila, 2025–present.
- Technical Lead and Member of the UNIQUE Student Affairs Committee, 2022–24.
- Organiser of the UNIQUE Student Symposium, 2022–24.
- Organiser of the Neural-AI Reading Group at Mila, 2022–present.
Reviewing
- Transactions on Machine Learning Research (TMLR), 2025–present
- International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), 2025
- International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), 2025 and 2026
- Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), 2024 and 2025
- Representational Alignment (Re-Align) Workshop at ICLR, 2024 and 2025
- NeuroAI Workshop at NeurIPS, 2024
- Unifying Representations in Neural Models (UniReps) Workshop at NeurIPS, 2023–2025
- Cognitive Computational Neuroscience (CCN), 2025
- Montréal AI Symposium (MAIS), 2022 and 2024