Roozbeh Kiani
| Roozbeh Kiani | |
|---|---|
| Born | Amol, Iran |
| 🎓 Alma mater | University of Washington Stanford |
| 💼 Occupation | |
| 🏅 Awards | Troland Research Award (2022) McKnight Scholar Award (2016) Pew Scholar in Biomedical Sciences (2016) Sloan Research Fellowship (2014) Donald B. Lindsley Prize in Behavioral Neuroscience (2010) International Chemistry Olympiad Gold Medal (1995) |
| 🌐 Website | https://as.nyu.edu/faculty/roozbeh-kiani.html |
Roozbeh Kiani is an Iranian-American neuroscientist whose research has helped define how the brain makes decisions under uncertainty. He is currently a professor of Neural Science and Psychology at New York University (NYU), where he directs the Perceptual and Mnemonic Decision-Making Lab at the Center for Neural Science. Kiani’s work has advanced our understanding of how the brain integrates evidence over time, encodes decision confidence, and flexibly adapts decision-making strategies to changing contexts.
Early Life and Education
Kiani was born and raised in Amol, Iran. He demonstrated exceptional scientific aptitude from an early age and gained international recognition in 1995 when he was awarded a gold medal at the 27th International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO).[1] in Beijing, China. He also received the special award for the highest overall score among gold medalists that year [1]
After completing high school, Kiani was admitted to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran, where he pursued medical studies while cultivating a deepening interest in the neural basis of vision and cognition.[2]. Motivated to pursue neuroscience more fully, he moved to the United States and joined the University of Washington, where he earned a Ph.D. in Neurobiology under the mentorship of Michael Shadlen. His doctoral work laid foundational insights into perceptual decision-making and the neural encoding of confidence [3][4][5]. Following his Ph.D., Kiani conducted postdoctoral research with William T. Newsome at Stanford University, further developing neurophysiological and behavioral paradigms to probe decision circuits in primates [6][7][8]
Academic Career and Research Contributions
Kiani joined the faculty at New York University in 2013, where he is now a full professor in the Center for Neural Science and affiliated with the Department of Psychology [9]. His lab investigates how the brain accumulates information, estimates uncertainty, and makes decisions that are both flexible and robust to environmental change.
A hallmark of Kiani’s research is the integration of experimental and computational approaches. His group combines electrophysiology, neurostimulation, psychophysics, and computational modeling to understand the cortical and subcortical circuits supporting decision-making. His work has shed light on how bounded evidence accumulation governs decision timing, how confidence emerges as an internal estimate of choice reliability, and how contextual cues reshape neural manifolds that support decision formation.
Kiani's scientific contributions include foundational work on the neural basis of decision confidence, showing how cortical neurons encode subjective estimates of certainty and use them to guide post-decision behavior [3][4][10][11][12][13]. He has also studied the neural basis of hierarchical decisions [12][14] and how contextual information dynamically reshapes decision-related representations [15][16][14][11][12]. Kiani has contributed to the development of causal perturbation methods to manipulate neural population activity and dissect its role in behavior [17][18][10]. Earlier in his career, Kiani made contributions to our understanding of object vision by demonstrating how neurons in inferotemporal (IT) cortex represent object categories [19][20].
Since 2024, Kiani co-directs the Methods in Computational Neuroscience course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, a flagship training program in systems neuroscience and theory.
Kiani was a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors at the National Eye Institute from 2020 to 2025.[21]
Selected Awards
- 1995, Gold Medal and Top Score, 27th International Chemistry Olympiad [1]
- 2010, Donald B. Lindsley Prize in Behavioral Neuroscience[22]
- 2014, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship[23]
- 2016, McKnight Scholar Award[24]
- 2016, Pew Scholar in Biomedical Sciences[25]
- 2022, Troland Research Award, National Academy of Sciences[26][27]
- 2023, Pew Innovation Fund Award (2023)[9]
Personal Life
Kiani has been an outspoken advocate for academic freedom and human rights, and has contributed to conversations around global science and political risk[2].
External Links
- Google scholar, Roozbeh Kiani
- Kiani Lab, NYU's Center for Neural Science
- Kiani's Farsi wikipage
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "IChO Results". www.icho-official.org. Retrieved 2025-10-22.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Growing Up in Science, Roozbeh Kiani". growingupinscience.github.io. 2022. Retrieved 2025-10-23.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Kiani, Roozbeh; Shadlen, Michael N. (2009-05-08). "Representation of Confidence Associated with a Decision by Neurons in the Parietal Cortex". Science. 324 (5928): 759–764. Bibcode:2009Sci...324..759K. doi:10.1126/science.1169405. ISSN 0036-8075. PMC 2738936. PMID 19423820.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Kiani, Roozbeh; Corthell, Leah; Shadlen, Michael N. (2014-12-17). "Choice Certainty Is Informed by Both Evidence and Decision Time". Neuron. 84 (6): 1329–1342. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2014.12.015. ISSN 0896-6273. PMC 4271191. PMID 25521381.
- ↑ Kiani, Roozbeh; Hanks, Timothy D.; Shadlen, Michael N. (2008-03-19). "Bounded Integration in Parietal Cortex Underlies Decisions Even When Viewing Duration Is Dictated by the Environment". Journal of Neuroscience. 28 (12): 3017–3029. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4761-07.2008. ISSN 0270-6474. PMC 6670720 Check
|pmc=value (help). PMID 18354005. - ↑ Kiani, Roozbeh; Cueva, Christopher J.; Reppas, John B.; Newsome, William T. (2014-07-07). "Dynamics of Neural Population Responses in Prefrontal Cortex Indicate Changes of Mind on Single Trials". Current Biology. 24 (13): 1542–1547. Bibcode:2014CBio...24.1542K. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2014.05.049. ISSN 0960-9822. PMC 4191655. PMID 24954050.
- ↑ Kiani, Roozbeh; Cueva, Christopher J.; Reppas, John B.; Peixoto, Diogo; Ryu, Stephen I.; Newsome, William T. (2015-03-18). "Natural Grouping of Neural Responses Reveals Spatially Segregated Clusters in Prearcuate Cortex". Neuron. 85 (6): 1359–1373. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2015.02.014. ISSN 0896-6273. PMC 4366683. PMID 25728571.
- ↑ Peixoto, Diogo; Verhein, Jessica R.; Kiani, Roozbeh; Kao, Jonathan C.; Nuyujukian, Paul; Chandrasekaran, Chandramouli; Brown, Julian; Fong, Sania; Ryu, Stephen I.; Shenoy, Krishna V.; Newsome, William T. (2021). "Decoding and perturbing decision states in real time". Nature. 591 (7851): 604–609. Bibcode:2021Natur.591..604P. doi:10.1038/s41586-020-03181-9. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 33473215 Check
|pmid=value (help). - ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Roozbeh Kiani, NYU". as.nyu.edu. Retrieved 2025-10-23.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Fetsch, Christopher R.; Kiani, Roozbeh; Newsome, William T.; Shadlen, Michael N. (2014-08-20). "Effects of Cortical Microstimulation on Confidence in a Perceptual Decision". Neuron. 83 (4): 797–804. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2014.07.011. ISSN 0896-6273. PMC 4141901. PMID 25123306.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Purcell, Braden A.; Kiani, Roozbeh (2016-02-03). "Neural Mechanisms of Post-error Adjustments of Decision Policy in Parietal Cortex". Neuron. 89 (3): 658–671. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2015.12.027. ISSN 0896-6273. PMC 4742416. PMID 26804992.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Purcell, Braden A.; Kiani, Roozbeh (2016-08-02). "Hierarchical decision processes that operate over distinct timescales underlie choice and changes in strategy". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 113 (31): E4531–E4540. Bibcode:2016PNAS..113E4531P. doi:10.1073/pnas.1524685113. PMC 4978308. PMID 27432960.
- ↑ Khalvati, Koosha; Kiani, Roozbeh; Rao, Rajesh P. N. (2021-09-29). "Bayesian inference with incomplete knowledge explains perceptual confidence and its deviations from accuracy". Nature Communications. 12 (1): 5704. Bibcode:2021NatCo..12.5704K. doi:10.1038/s41467-021-25419-4. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 8481237 Check
|pmc=value (help). PMID 34588440 Check|pmid=value (help). - ↑ 14.0 14.1 Okazawa, Gouki; Kiani, Roozbeh (2023). "Neural Mechanisms That Make Perceptual Decisions Flexible". Annual Review of Physiology. 85: 191–215. doi:10.1146/annurev-physiol-031722-024731. ISSN 0066-4278. PMC 10308708 Check
|pmc=value (help). PMID 36343603 Check|pmid=value (help). - ↑ Okazawa, Gouki; Hatch, Christina E.; Mancoo, Allan; Machens, Christian K.; Kiani, Roozbeh (2021-07-08). "Representational geometry of perceptual decisions in the monkey parietal cortex". Cell. 184 (14): 3748–3761.e18. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2021.05.022. ISSN 0092-8674. PMC 8273140 Check
|pmc=value (help). PMID 34171308 Check|pmid=value (help). - ↑ Mochol, Gabriela; Kiani, Roozbeh; Moreno-Bote, Rubén (2021-03-22). "Prefrontal cortex represents heuristics that shape choice bias and its integration into future behavior". Current Biology. 31 (6): 1234–1244.e6. Bibcode:2021CBio...31E1234M. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2021.01.068. ISSN 0960-9822. PMC 8095400 Check
|pmc=value (help). PMID 33639107 Check|pmid=value (help). - ↑ Nejatbakhsh, Amin; Fumarola, Francesco; Esteki, Saleh; Toyoizumi, Taro; Kiani, Roozbeh; Mazzucato, Luca (2024). "Predicting the effect of micro-stimulation on macaque prefrontal activity based on spontaneous circuit dynamics". Physical Review Research. 5 (4): 043211. doi:10.1103/physrevresearch.5.043211. ISSN 2643-1564. PMC 11636805 Check
|pmc=value (help). PMID 39669288 Check|pmid=value (help). - ↑ Afraz, Seyed-Reza; Kiani, Roozbeh; Esteky, Hossein (2006). "Microstimulation of inferotemporal cortex influences face categorization". Nature. 442 (7103): 692–695. Bibcode:2006Natur.442..692A. doi:10.1038/nature04982. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 16878143.
- ↑ Kiani, Roozbeh; Esteky, Hossein; Mirpour, Koorosh; Tanaka, Keiji (2007). "Object Category Structure in Response Patterns of Neuronal Population in Monkey Inferior Temporal Cortex". Journal of Neurophysiology. 97 (6): 4296–4309. doi:10.1152/jn.00024.2007. ISSN 0022-3077. PMID 17428910.
- ↑ Kriegeskorte, Nikolaus; Mur, Marieke; Ruff, Douglas A.; Kiani, Roozbeh; Bodurka, Jerzy; Esteky, Hossein; Tanaka, Keiji; Bandettini, Peter A. (2008-12-26). "Matching Categorical Object Representations in Inferior Temporal Cortex of Man and Monkey". Neuron. 60 (6): 1126–1141. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2008.10.043. ISSN 0896-6273. PMC 3143574. PMID 19109916.
- ↑ "Board of Scientific Counselors Permanent Members | National Eye Institute". www.nei.nih.gov. Retrieved 2025-10-23.
- ↑ "Past Lindsley Prize Winners – The Grass Foundation". Retrieved 2025-10-23.
- ↑ "Fellows Database | Alfred P. Sloan Foundation". sloan.org. Retrieved 2025-10-23.
- ↑ "Awardees". McKnight Foundation. Retrieved 2025-10-23.
- ↑ "Roozbeh Kiani, M.D., Ph.D." pew.org. Retrieved 2025-10-23.
- ↑ "Troland Research Award". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 2025-10-23.
- ↑ Hardcastle, Matthew (2022). "QnAs with Roozbeh Kiani". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 119 (29). Bibcode:2022PNAS..11909730H. doi:10.1073/pnas.2209730119. PMC 9304014 Check
|pmc=value (help). PMID 35858369 Check|pmid=value (help). Unknown parameter|article-number=ignored (help)
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