Professor Mahnaz Arvaneh Secures ARIA and Pillar VC Support to Drive AI Neurotech Research at Sheffield

Prof Mahnaz Arvaneh secures backing from ARIA and Pillar VC through the Encode initiative to recruit an AI Research Fellow at Sheffield, advancing privacy-preserving EEG data for healthcare innovation.

Encode Challengescape

The Centre for Machine Intelligence (CMI) is pleased to share that Professor Mahnaz Arvaneh, CMI Lead for AI Powered Spinouts and Entrepreneurship, has secured backing from the Encode: AI for Science initiative, supported by the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) and Pillar VC.

Through her inclusion on the Encode Challengescape, a public map highlighting open problems in science, Professor Arvaneh is now recruiting an outstanding AI Research Fellow to join her team at the University of Sheffield.

Translating AI into Real World Healthcare

As Director of the Physiological Signals and Systems Laboratory and CMI Lead for AI Powered Spinouts and Entrepreneurship, Professor Arvaneh focuses on bridging the gap between scientific research and practical applications. Her project tackles a key bottleneck in neurotechnology: the scarcity of large, shareable electroencephalography (EEG) datasets.

Clinical EEG data is notoriously difficult to share owing to strict privacy regulations, individual variability, and hardware differences across recording environments. Under the leadership of Professor Arvaneh, the incoming Research Fellow will develop realistic, privacy preserving synthetic EEG datasets to support AI applications across several areas:

  • Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs): Building adaptive systems for neural control and rehabilitation.
  • Cognitive State and Diagnostic Monitoring: Enhancing precision in clinical neurological assessments.
  • Reproducible, Safe Research: Facilitating cross site validation and secure data sharing across research institutions.

An Exceptional Fellowship Package

This 12 month post offers a strong foundation for turning research into tangible, real world outcomes:

  • Competitive Salary: An industry level package of up to £115,000 plus benefits.
  • Resources and Compute: Access to top tier computing resources, AI models, and specialized datasets.
  • Mentorship and Venture Support: Guidance from experts across science, AI, and entrepreneurship to help translate findings into viable ventures or organisations.
  • Global Network: Integration with the wider Encode community of researchers, founders, and investors.

Join the Team at Sheffield

This success underlines the ongoing work of Professor Arvaneh in aligning AI research with translational impact.

Researchers with expertise or a strong interest in generative AI, foundation models, synthetic data, privacy preserving machine learning, biomedical signal processing, or neurotechnology are encouraged to apply. Interested candidates can contact Professor Mahnaz Arvaneh directly at m.arvaneh@sheffield.ac.uk.

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