CV

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Current Positions

• 2022 to date: Postdoctoral Researcher, The Institute for Stroke and Dementia Research (ISD), The Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich Medical Center (Germany)
• 2018 to date: Chief Technology Officer, ClearSky Medical Diagnostics Ltd..

Previous Research Positions

• 2021-2022: Research Associate, Department of Electronic Engineering at the University of York (UK) Using a proven white-box machine learning approach developed previously, in this project, we used resting brain scans from a large existing dataset (the UK Biobank) to generate new algorithms that can identify participants with depression from healthy volunteers.
• 2020-2024: EMS Technical and Data Coordinator for Exenatide-PD3 research study, a randomised, double blind, parallel group, placebo controlled, Phase III trial of Exenatide once weekly over 2 years as a potential disease modifying treatment for Parkinson’s disease.
• 2020-2024: EMS Technical and Data Coordinator for two different research studies in Ruijin (China).
• 2020-2024: EMS Technical and Data Coordinator for AZA-PD research study, a randomised, double blind, placebo controlled, Phase II trial on Azathioprine immunosuppression and disease modification in Parkinson’s disease.
• 2020-2021: Research Fellow, Aberdeen Biomedical Imaging Centre within the Institute of Medical Sciences, at the School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition at the University of Aberdeen (UK) Supervised by Dr Gordon Waiter, in collaboration with Dr Neil Basu. In this research project, I worked with a multidisciplinary team of clinicians and scientists on unravelling the mechanisms of chronic fatigue, a salient issue across the chronic disease spectrum in the multicentre large project of The Lessening the Impact of Fatigue Trial (LIFT). Specifically, I focused on the analysis and understanding of a multimodal MRI/fMRI brain study, using machine learning techniques (including and not limited to Evolutionary Algorithms), in order to identify potential central neurobiological correlates of rheumatoid arthritis related fatigue and to then characterise the most plausible mediators of fatigue which may be feasibly targeted in the future.
• 2017-2020: EMS Technical and Data Coordinator for PD-STAT research study, Simvastatin as a Neuroprotective Treatment for Parkinson’s disease, a trial of 235 participants from 23 participating NHS hospitals across the UK.
• 2019: Post-Doctoral Researcher in Neuroimaging, The Neural Engineering Group within the Trinity Centre for Bioengineering and the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience at the University of Dublin (Ireland) Supervised by Dr Céline de Looze and Professor Richard Reilly. In this research project, we investigated the impact cognitive impairment may have on a person’s ability to communicate and how, in turn, such cognitive and speech difficulties may affect the quality of their day-to-day interactions. This research identified speech markers and their underlying neural correlates (brain structure and functional connectivity) for the detection of cognitive impairment in MCI and AD. It also established efficient communications strategies between a person with MCI or AD and their caregivers in order to enhance the quality of their day-to-day interactions.

Education

• 2014-2018: PhD Electronic Engineering, University of York (UK). Supervision: Professor Stephen L. Smith.

Cartesian Genetic Programming Classification of Resting-State fMRI: Towards a Brain Imaging Biomarker for Parkinson’s Disease. Topics examined included the analysis of resting state fMRI data using Dynamic Causal Modeling and timeseries analysis. The extracted features from the analyses were then subjected to the classifiers that were developed based on Cartesian Genetic Programming, Artificial Neural Networks, and Support Vector Machines.

• 2017: Translate: Me – Innovation Bootcamp, Translate: Medical Technologies (UK).
• 2015: Higher Education Academy Associate Fellow Status, following completion of York Learning and Teaching Award, University of York (UK): 1/3 of a PG Certificate in Higher Education.
• 2013: MSc Digital Signal Processing, University of York (UK).
• 2010: BSc Applied Science Electronics, University of Science and Arts of Yazd (Iran).

Work experience

• 2021: Machine Learning and Image Processing Engineer, smartR.ai, located in the Silicon Valley, smartR.ai is experienced in delivering solutions in the embedded marketspace. The company has worked on Machine Vision, Robotics, Fintech, Medical, and Consumer products for customers worldwide.
• 2014-2018: Technical Officer, ClearSky Medical Diagnostics Ltd., a spinout company which specialises in medical devices for the diagnosis and monitoring of Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and a range of other neurodegenerative conditions.
• 2016-2017: Professional Engineer, My Therapy Tools Ltd., a start-up company involved in the Horizon 2020 EU programme with the project “Acquired brain injury telerehabilitation system with high impact in patient’s wellbeing at limited cost” under SME instrument phase 1 funding scheme.
• 2010-2012: Control Engineer, working in ‘Padideh Control Engineering’ Office. Programming and installing PLC devices.

Research Interests

Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Classification, Cartesian Genetic Programming, Evolutionary Algorithms, Neuroimaging data analysis, Mediation Analysis, and Neurodegenerative Diseases Diagnosis (Biomarkers) and Monitoring.

Technical Skills

Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Git, Neuroimaging data analysis, High Performance Computing, MATLAB, C, R, Python, Shell, PHP, SQL, AI-based medical devices.

Publications

Classification of resting-state fMRI for olfactory dysfunction in Parkinson's disease using evolutionary algorithms.

Dehsarvi, A., & Smith, S. L. (2018). "Classification of resting-state fMRI for olfactory dysfunction in Parkinson's disease using evolutionary algorithms." Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference Companion on - GECCO '18. New York, New York, USA: ACM Press.

Cognitive and structural correlates of conversational speech timing in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Mild-to-Moderate Alzheimer's Disease: relevance for early detection approaches.

De Looze, C., Dehsarvi A., Crosby, L., Vourdanou, A., Coen, R. F., Lawlor, B., & Reilly, R. B. (2021). "Cognitive and structural correlates of conversational speech timing in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Mild-to-Moderate Alzheimer's Disease: relevance for early detection approaches."; Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. 13:637404. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2021.637404.

Towards Automated Monitoring of Parkinson's Disease Following Drug Treatment

Dehsarvi, A., South Palomares, J.K., Smith, S.L. (2022). Towards Automated Monitoring of Parkinson's Disease Following Drug Treatment. In: El Yacoubi, M., Granger, E., Yuen, P.C., Pal, U., Vincent, N. (eds) Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence. ICPRAI 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13364. Springer, Cham. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-09282-4_17.

Structural Correlates of Overt Sentence Reading in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Mild-to-Moderate Alzheimer's Disease

De Looze, C., Dehsarvi A., Crosby, L., Vourdanou, A., Coen, R. F., Lawlor, B., & Reilly, R. B. (2022). "Structural Correlates of Overt Sentence Reading in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Mild-to-Moderate Alzheimer's Disease"; Current Alzheimer Research. 19. doi: 10.2174/1567205019666220805110248.

Artificial Intelligence for Dementia Research Methods Optimization

Bucholc, M., James, C., Khleifat, A.A., Badhwar, A., Clarke, N., Dehsarvi, A., Madan, C.R., Marzi, S.J., Shand, C., Schilder, B.M., Tamburin, S., Tantiangco, H.M., Deep Dementia Phenotyping (DEMON) Network, Lourida, I., Llewellyn, D.J., Ranson, J.M. (2023). Artificial Intelligence for Dementia Research Methods Optimization. Alzheimers Dement. 19(12): 5934-5951. doi: 10.1002/alz.13441.

Artificial Intelligence for Biomarker Discovery in Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia

Winchester, L.M., Harshfield, E.L., Shi, L., Badhwar, A., Khleifat, A.A., Clarke, N., Dehsarvi, A., Lengyel, I., Lourida, I., Madan, C.R., Marzi, S.J., Proitsi, P., Rajkumar, A.P., Rittman, T., Silajdžić, E., Tamburin, S., Ranson, J.M., Llewellyn, D.J. (2023). Artificial Intelligence for Biomarker Discovery in Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia. Alzheimers Dement. 19(12): 5860-5871. doi: 10.1002/alz.13390.

Developing a Biomarker of Depression Using White-Box Machine Learning of Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Matthews, F., Dehsarvi, A., Dutta, A., Moriarty, A., Paton, L., & Smith, S. (2023). Developing a Biomarker of Depression Using White-Box Machine Learning of Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Neuroscience Applied, 2, 103668. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neappl.2023.103668.

ApoE4 and Connectivity-Mediated Spreading of Tau Pathology at Lower Amyloid Levels

Steward, A., Biel, D., Dewenter, A., Roemer, S., Wagner, F., Dehsarvi, A., Rathore, S., Otero Svaldi, D., Higgins, I., Brendel, M., Dichgans, M., Shcherbinin, S., Ewers, M., Franzmeier, N. (2023). ApoE4 and Connectivity-Mediated Spreading of Tau Pathology at Lower Amyloid Levels. JAMA Neurol. 80(12): 1295-1306. doi: 10.1001/jamaneurol.2023.4038.

ADPrep - A Fully Automated Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Preprocessing Pipeline for MRI and Multi-tracer PET Data

Dehsarvi, A., Denecke, J., Biel, D., Dewenter, A., Roemer, S.N., Steward, A., Wanger, F., Brendel, M., Franzmeier, N. (2023). ADPrep - A fully automated Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Preprocessing Pipeline for MRI and multi-tracer PET data. Alzheimer's Dement., 19: e079614. https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.079614.

The Effect of Local versus Remote Beta-Amyloid on Functional Connectivity Mediated Tau-Spread in Alzheimer's Disease

Wanger, F., Steward, A., Biel, D., Dewenter, A., Roemer, S.N., Ewers, M., Dehsarvi, A., Franzmeier, N. (2023). The Effect of Local versus Remote Beta-Amyloid on Functional Connectivity Mediated Tau-Spread in Alzheimer's Disease. Alzheimer's Dement., 19: e079578. https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.079578.

Increased CSF GAP-43 is associated with accelerated tau accumulation and spread in Alzheimer's disease

Franzmeier, N., Dehsarvi, A., Steward, A., Biel, D., Dewenter, A., Roemer, S.N., Wanger, F., Brendel, M., Ewers, M., Moscoso, A., Blennow, K., Zetterberg, H., Schoell, M. (2023). Increased CSF GAP-43 is associated with accelerated tau accumulation and spread in Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's Dement., 19: e080039. https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.080039.

APOE4 Facilitates the Accumulation and Connectivity-Mediated Spreading of Tau Pathology at Lower Amyloid Levels

Steward, A., Biel, D., Dewenter, A., Roemer, S.N., Wanger, F., Dehsarvi, A., Svaldi, D., Higgins, I.A., Brendel, M., Shcherbinin, S., Ewers, M., Franzmeier, N. (2023). APOE4 Facilitates the Accumulation and Connectivity-Mediated Spreading of Tau Pathology at Lower Amyloid Levels. Alzheimer's Dement., 19: e074017. https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.074017.

Effects of Cerebrovascular Disease on Tau Progression and Cognitive Decline in Alzheimer's Disease

Dewenter, A., Steward, A., Dehsarvi, A., Biel, D., Roemer, S.N., Wanger, F., Franzmeier, N. (2023). Effects of Cerebrovascular Disease on Tau Progression and Cognitive Decline in Alzheimer's Disease. Alzheimer's Dement., 19: e078894. https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.078894.

Elevated CSF GAP-43 is associated with accelerated tau accumulation and spread in Alzheimer's disease

Franzmeier, N., Dehsarvi, A., Steward, A., Biel, D., Dewenter, A., Roemer, S.N., Wagner, F., Gross, M., Brendel, M., Moscoso, A., Arunachalam, P., Blennow, K., Zetterberg, H., Ewers, M., Schoell, M. (2024). Elevated CSF GAP-43 is associated with accelerated tau accumulation and spread in Alzheimer's disease. Nat Commun. 15(1): 202. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-44374-w.

Characterizing the Neurobiological Mechanisms of Action of Exercise and Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions for Rheumatoid Arthritis Fatigue: A Magnetic Resonance Imaging Brain Study

Dehsarvi, A., Al-Wasity, S., Stefanov, K., Wiseman, S.J., Ralston, S.H., Wardlaw, J.M., Emsley, R., Bachmair, E.M., Cavanagh, J., Waiter, G.D., Basu, N. (2024). Characterizing the Neurobiological Mechanisms of Action of Exercise and Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions for Rheumatoid Arthritis Fatigue: A Magnetic Resonance Imaging Brain Study. Arthritis Rheumatol. 76(4): 522-530. doi: 10.1002/art.42755.

Subcortical tau is linked to hypoperfusion in connected cortical regions in 4-repeat tauopathies

Roemer, S.N., Brendel, M., Gnoerich, J., Malpetti, M., Zaganjori, M., Quattrone, A., Gross, M., Steward, A., Dewenter, A., Wagner, F., Dehsarvi, A., Ferschmann, C., Wall, S., Palleis, C., Rauchmann, B.S., Katzdobler, S., Jaeck, A., Stockbauer, A., Fietzek, U.M., Bernhardt, A.M., Weidinger, E., Zwergal, A., Stoecklein, S., Perneczky, R., Barthel, H., Sabri, O., Levin, J., Hoeglinger, G.U., Franzmeier, N. (2024). Subcortical tau is linked to hypoperfusion in connected cortical regions in 4-repeat tauopathies. Brain, 2024; awae174. doi: 10.1093/brain/awae174.

Neuroinflammation Parallels 18F-PI-2620 Positron Emission Tomography Patterns in Primary 4-Repeat Tauopathies

Malpetti, M., Roemer, S.N., Harris, S., Gross, M., Gnörich, J., Stephens, A., Dewenter, A., Steward, A., Biel, D., Dehsarvi, A., Wagner, F., Müller, A., Koglin, N., Weidinger, E., Palleis, C., Katzdobler, S., Rupprecht, R., Perneczky, R., Rauchmann, B.-S., Levin, J., Höglinger, G.U., Brendel, M., Franzmeier, N. (2024). Neuroinflammation Parallels 18F-PI-2620 Positron Emission Tomography Patterns in Primary 4-Repeat Tauopathies. Movement Disorders. doi: 10.1002/mds.29924.

Amyloid-β and tau deposition in traumatic brain injury: a study of Vietnam War veterans

de Bruin, H., Groot, C., Kamps, S., Vijverberg, E.G.B., Steward, A., Dehsarvi, A., Pijnenburg, Y.A.L., Ossenkoppele, R., Franzmeier, N. (2025). Amyloid-β and tau deposition in traumatic brain injury: a study of Vietnam War veterans. Brain Commun. 7(1): fcaf009. doi: 10.1093/braincomms/fcaf009.

Amyloid-associated hyperconnectivity drives tau spread across connected brain regions in Alzheimer's disease

Roemer-Cassiano, S.N., Wagner, F., Evangelista, L., Rauchmann, B.-S., Dehsarvi, A., Steward, A., Dewenter, A., Biel, D., Zhu, Z., Pescoller, J., Gross, M., Perneczky, R., Malpetti, M., Ewers, M., Schöll, M., Dichgans, M., Höglinger, G.U., Brendel, M., Jäkel, S., Franzmeier, N. (2025). Amyloid-associated hyperconnectivity drives tau spread across connected brain regions in Alzheimer's disease. Sci Transl Med. 17(782): eadp2564. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.adp2564.

Female sex is linked to a stronger association between sTREM2 and CSF p-tau in Alzheimer's disease

Biel, D., Suárez-Calvet, M., Dewenter, A., Steward, A., Roemer, S.N., Dehsarvi, A., Zhu, Z., Pescoller, J., Frontzkowski, L., Kreuzer, A., Haass, C., Schöll, M., Brendel, M., Franzmeier, N. (2025). Female sex is linked to a stronger association between sTREM2 and CSF p-tau in Alzheimer's disease. EMBO Mol Med. 17(2): 235-248. doi: 10.1038/s44321-024-00190-3.

Alpha-synuclein co-pathology is associated with accelerated amyloid-driven tau accumulation in Alzheimer's disease

Franzmeier, N., Roemer-Cassiano, S.N., Bernhardt, A.M., Dehsarvi, A., Dewenter, A., Steward, A., Biel, D., Frontzkowski, L., Zhu, Z., Gnörich, J., Pescoller, J., Wagner, F., Hirsch, F., de Bruin, H., Ossenkoppele, R., Palleis, C., Strübing, F., Schöll, M., Levin, J., Brendel, M., Höglinger, G.U. (2025). Alpha-synuclein co-pathology is associated with accelerated amyloid-driven tau accumulation in Alzheimer's disease. Mol Neurodegener. 20(31). doi: 10.1186/s13024-025-00822-3.

Talks

The Application of Evolutionary Algorithms for the Analysis of Brain Imaging Data

April 15, 2021

Talk at University of York - Department of Electronic Engineering, York, United Kingdom

The Application of Evolutionary Algorithms for the Analysis of Biomedical Data

May 10, 2021

Talk at Imperial College London, London, UK

The Application of Evolutionary Algorithms for the Analysis of Biomedical Data

July 07, 2021

Talk at DEMON Network, Aberdeen, UK

Towards Automated Monitoring of Parkinson's Disease Following Drug Treatment

June 02, 2022

Talk at Pattern Recognition and Artificial Intelligence. ICPRAI 2022, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France

Teaching

Lab Leader and Postgraduate Teaching Assistant

SINAPSE/MathWorks MATLAB for Image Processing Training course

Service and leadership

• 2024: Reviewer for the journal of Health Science Reports
• 2024: Reviewer for the journal of Neural Computing and Applications
• 2024: Conference committee member of EvoApplications*, 27th European Conference on the Applications of Evolutionary and bio-inspired Computation, part of evo*2024, held in Wales (United Kingdom).
• 2023: Conference committee member of EvoApplications*, 26th European Conference on the Applications of Evolutionary and bio-inspired Computation, part of evo*2023, held in Brno (Czech Reublic).
• 2022: Conference committee member of ICONIP 2022*, 29th International Conference on Neural Information Processing, in New Delhi (India).
• 2022: Conference committee member of EvoApplications*, 25th European Conference on the Applications of Evolutionary and bio-inspired Computation, part of evo*2022, held in Madrid (Spain).
• 2021: Reviewer for the journal of Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
• 2021: SINAPSE-IA Deputy Lead
• 2021: Reviewer for the journal of Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines.
• 2021: Conference committee member of EvoApplications*, 24th European Conference on the Applications of Evolutionary and bio-inspired Computation, part of evo*2021, held virtually.
• 2020: Conference committee member of EvoApplications*, 23rd European Conference on the Applications of Evolutionary and bio-inspired Computation, part of evo*2020, held virtually.
• 2020: Conference committee member of The 10th International Conference on Soft Computing for Problem Solving (SocProS 2020), held in Indore (India).
• 2017-2019: Association for Computing Machinery member.
• 2014-2018: IEEE student member.
• 2016: Conference committee member of The International Conference for Students on Applied Engineering (ICSAE 2016) held in Newcastle upon Tyne (UK).
• 2016: Conference Chair of The 31st Annual Psychology Postgraduate Affairs Group Conference held in York (UK).
• 2016: Conference committee member of York Doctoral Symposium
• 2014-2016: Postgraduate Representative at The Department of Electronic Engineering, University of York (UK).