Samuel A. Nastase — CV

Appointments

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology 2025–present
Faculty, Neuroscience Graduate Program
Co-director, Center for Computational Language Sciences
University of Southern California

Postdoctoral Research Associate and Lecturer 2018–2025
Princeton Neuroscience Institute
Princeton University (advisors: Uri Hasson, Kenneth A. Norman)

Education

PhD—Cognitive Neuroscience 2012–2017
Dartmouth College (advisor: James V. Haxby)

MSc—Cognitive Neuroscience 2010–2012
University of Trento (advisor: Uri Hasson)

BA—Cognitive Science, Philosophy 2006–2010
Johns Hopkins University (advisor: Michael McCloskey)

Funding

NSF CRCNS 2605721 (PI: S.A.N.) 2026–present
Generative models of neural activity driving conversational speech in longitudinal dialogues

Digital Brain Project (PI: S.A.N.) 2026–present
Possible Worlds: an fMRI dataset of interactive social-narrative gameplay

Publications

Nastase, S. A., Zada, Z., Goldberg, A., & Hasson, U. (2026). Unifying the structures of language in a neural population code. Neuron. DOI PDF

Bhattacharjee, A., Zada, Z., Wang, H., Aubrey, B., Doyle, W., Dugan, P., Friedman, D., Devinsky, O., Flinker, A., Ramadge, P. J., Hasson, U., Goldstein, A.*, & Nastase, S. A.* (2026). Aligning brains into a shared space improves their alignment to large language models. Nature Computational Science, 6, 169–178. DOI PDF

Zada, Z., Nastase, S. A., Speer, S., Mwilambwe-Tshilobo, L., Tsoi, L., Burns, S., Falk, E., Hasson, U., & Tamir, D. (2026). Linguistic coupling between neural systems for speech production and comprehension during real-time dyadic conversations. Neuron, 114(4), 774–787. DOI PDF

Christian, I. R., & Nastase, S. A. (2026). Hierarchical systems in the default mode network when reasoning about self and other mental states. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 21(1), nsag047. DOI PDF

Chen, Y., Zada, Z., Nastase, S. A., Ashby, F. G., & Ghosh, S. S. (2026). Context modulates brain state dynamics and behavioral responses during narrative comprehension. Imaging Neuroscience, 4, IMAG.a.1116. DOI PDF

Goldstein, A.*, Ham, E.*, Schain, M.*, Nastase, S. A., Aubrey, B., Zada, Z., Grinstein-Dabush, A., Gazula, H., Feder, A., Doyle, W., Devore, S., Dugan, P., Friedman, D., Brenner, M., Hassidim, A., Matias, Y., Devinsky, O., Siegelman, N., Flinker, A., Levy, O., Reichart, R., & Hasson, U. (2025). Temporal structure of natural language processing in the human brain corresponds to layered hierarchy of large language models. Nature Communications, 16, 10529. DOI PDF

Samara, A., Zada, Z., Vanderwal, T., Hasson, U., & Nastase, S. A. (2025). Cortical language areas are coupled via a soft hierarchy of model-based linguistic features. bioRxiv. DOI PDF

Zada, Z., Nastase, S. A., Li, J., & Hasson, U. (2025). Brains and language models converge on a shared conceptual space across different languages. arXiv. DOI PDF

Nastase, S. A. (2025). Larger language models better align with the reading brain. Nature Computational Science, 5, 994–995. DOI PDF

Zada, Z., Nastase, S. A., Aubrey, B., Jalon, I., Michelmann, S., Wang, H., Hasenfratz, L., Doyle, W., Friedman, D., Dugan, P., Melloni, L., Devore, S., Flinker, A., Devinsky, O., Goldstein, A., & Hasson, U. (2025). The “Podcast” ECoG dataset for modeling neural activity during natural language comprehension. Scientific Data, 12, 1135. DOI PDF

Chang, C. H. C., Nastase, S. A., Hasson, U., & Dominey, P. F. (2025). Emergence of a temporal processing gradient from naturalistic inputs and network connectivity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 122(28), e2420105122. DOI PDF

Xu, Q., Peng, Y., Nastase, S. A., Chodorow, M., Wu, M., & Li, P. (2025). Large language models without grounding recover non-sensorimotor but not sensorimotor features of human concepts. Nature Human Behaviour, 9, 1871–1886. DOI PDF

Gu, C., Nastase, S. A., Zada, Z., & Li, P. (2025). Reading comprehension in L1 and L2 readers: neurocomputational mechanisms revealed through large language models. npj Science of Learning, 10, 46. DOI PDF

Goldstein, A., Nastase, S. A.*, Wang, H.*, Niekerken, L.*, Zada, Z.*, Aubrey, B.*, Sheffer, T.*, Gazula, H., Schain, M., Singh, A., Rao, A., Choe, G., Kim, C., Doyle, W., Friedman, D., Devore, S., Dugan, P., Hassidim, A., Brenner, M., Matias, Y., Devinsky, O., Flinker, A., & Hasson, U. (2025). A unified acoustic-to-speech-to-language embedding space captures the neural basis of natural language processing in everyday conversations. Nature Human Behaviour, 9, 1041–1055. DOI PDF

Jung, H., Han, X., Feilong, M., Han, J., Shokeen, D., Van Uden, C., Hanson, I., Connolly, A. C., Haxby, J. V., & Nastase, S. A. (2025). Action features dominate cortical representation during natural vision. bioRxiv. DOI PDF

Christian, I. R., Nastase, S. A., Yu, M., Ziman, K., & Graziano, M. S. (2025). Monitoring attention in self and others. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 37(11), 2284–2294. DOI PDF

Zada, Z., Goldstein, A. Y., Michelmann, S., Simony, E., Price, A., Hasenfratz, L., Barham, E., Zadbood, A., Doyle, W., Friedman, D., Dugan, P., Melloni, L., Devore, S., Flinker, A., Devinsky, O., Hasson, U.*, & Nastase, S. A.* (2024). A shared model-based linguistic space for transmitting our thoughts from brain to brain in natural conversations. Neuron, 112(18), 3211–3222. DOI PDF

Kumar, S.*, Sumers, T. R.*, Yamakoshi, T., Goldstein, A., Hasson, U., Norman, K. A., Griffiths, T. L., Hawkins, R. D., & Nastase, S. A. (2024). Shared functional specialization in transformer-based language models and the human brain. Nature Communications, 15, 5523. DOI PDF

Han, J., Chauhan, V., Philip, R., Taylor, M. K., Jung, H., Halchenko, Y. O., Gobbini, M. I., Haxby, J. V.*, & Nastase, S. A.* (2024). Behaviorally-relevant features of observed actions dominate cortical representational geometry in natural vision. bioRxiv. DOI PDF

Chang, C. H. C., Nastase, S. A., & Hasson, U. (2024). How a speaker herds the audience: multi-brain neural convergence over time during naturalistic storytelling. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 19(1), nsae059. DOI PDF

Goldstein, A., Wang, H., Sheffer, T., Schain, M., Zada, Z., Niekerken, L., Aubrey, B., Nastase, S. A., Gazula, H., Casto, C., Doyle, W. K., Friedman, D., Devore, S., Dugan, P., Hassidim, A., Brenner, M., Matias, Y., Devinsky, O., Flinker, A., & Hasson, U. (2024). Information-making processes in the speaker’s brain drive human conversations forward. bioRxiv. DOI PDF

Hong, Z.*, Wang, K.*, Zada, Z., Gazula, H., Turner, D., Aubrey, B., Niekerken, L., Doyle, W., Devore, S., Dugan, P., Friedman, D., Devinsky, O., Flinker, A., Hasson, U.*, Goldstein, A.*, & Nastase, S. A.* (2024). Scale matters: large language models with billions (rather than millions) of parameters better match neural representations of natural language. eLife, 13, RP101204. DOI PDF

Christian, I. R., Nastase, S. A., Kim, L. K., & Graziano, M. S. (2024). Meta-awareness, mind-wandering, and the control of ‘default’ external and internal orientations of attention. bioRxiv. DOI PDF

Goldstein, A., Grinstein-Dabush, A., Schain, M., Wang, H., Hong, Z., Aubrey, B., Nastase, S. A., Zada, Z., Ham, E., Hong, Z., Feder, A., Gazula, H., Buchnik, E., Doyle, W., Devore, S., Dugan, P., Reichart, R., Friedman, D., Brenner, M., Hassidim, A., Devinsky, O., Flinker, A., & Hasson, U. (2024). Alignment of brain embeddings and artificial contextual embeddings in natural language points to common geometric patterns. Nature Communications, 15, 2768. DOI PDF

Gu, C., Peng, Y., Nastase, S. A., Mayer, R. E., & Li, P. (2024). Onscreen presence of instructors in video lectures affects learners’ neural synchrony and visual attention during multimedia learning. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 121(12), e2309054121. DOI PDF

Moia, S., Wang, H. T., Heinsfeld, A. S., Jarecka, D., Yang, Y. F., Heunis, S., Svanera, M., De Leener, B., Gondová, A., Kim, S., Basavaraj, A., Bayer, J. M. M., Bayrak, R. G., Bazin, P.-L., Bilgin, I. P., Bollmann, S., Borek, D., Borghesani, V., Cao, T., Chen, G., De La Vega, A., Dresbach, S., Ehses, P., Ernsting, J., Esteves, I., Ferrante, O., Garner, K. G., Gau, R., Germani, E., Ghafari, T., Ghosh, S. S., Goodale, S. E., Gould van Praag, C. D., Guay, S., Gulban, O. F., Halchenko, Y. O., Hanke, M., Herholz, P., Heuer, K., Hoffstaedter, F., Huang, R., Huber, R., Jensen, O., Keeratimahat, K., Kosciessa, J. Q., Lukic, S., Magielse, N., Markiewicz, C. J., Martin, C. G., Maumet, C., Menacher, A., Mentch, J., Mönch, C., More, S., Muller-Rodriguez, L., Nastase, S. A., Nicolaisen-Sobesky, E., Nielson, D. M., Nolan, C. R., Paugam, F., Pinheiro-Chagas, P., Pinho, A. L., Pizzuti, A., Poldrack, B., Poser, B. A., Rocca, R., Sanz-Robinson, J., Sarink, K., Sitek, K. R., Spychala, N., Stirnberg, R., Szczepanik, M., Torabi, M., Toro, R., Urchs, S. G. W., Valk, S. J., Wagner, A. S., Waite, L. K., Waite, A., Q., Waller, L., Wishard, T. J., Wu, J., Zhou, Y., Bijsterbosch, J. D., & The Physiopy Community. (2024). Proceedings of the OHBM Brainhack 2022. Aperture Neuro, 4. DOI PDF

Kewenig, V., Lampinen, A., Nastase, S. A., Edwards, C., D’Elascombe, Q., Richardt, A., Skipper, J. I., & Vigliocco, G. (2023). Multimodality and attention increase alignment in natural language prediction between humans and computational models. arXiv. DOI PDF

Jiahui, G., Feilong, M., Nastase, S. A., Haxby, J. V., & Gobbini, M. I. (2023). Cross-movie prediction of individualized functional topography. eLife, 12, e86037. DOI PDF

Jiahui, G., Feilong, M., Visconti di Oleggio Castello, Nastase, S. A., Haxby, J. V., & Gobbini, M. I. (2023). Modeling naturalistic face processing in humans with deep convolutional neural networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 120(43), e2304085120. DOI PDF

Feilong, M., Nastase, S. A., Jiahui, G., Halchenko, Y. O., Gobbini, M. I., & Haxby, J. V. (2023). The individualized neural tuning model: precise and generalizable cartography of functional architecture in individual brains. Imaging Neuroscience. DOI PDF

Xie, E., Liu, M., Li, K., Nastase, S. A., Gao, X., & Li, X. (2023). The single-and dual-brain mechanisms underlying the adviser’s confidence expression strategy switching during influence management. NeuroImage, 270, 119957. DOI PDF

Zadbood, A., Nastase, S. A., Chen, J., Norman, K. A., & Hasson, U. (2022). Neural representations of naturalistic events are updated as our understanding of the past changes. eLife, 11, e79045. DOI PDF

Chang, C. H. C., Nastase, S. A., & Hasson, U. (2022). Information flow across the cortical timescales hierarchy during narrative construction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 119(51), e2209307119. DOI PDF

Goldstein, A., Nastase, S. A.*, Zada, Z.*, Buchnik, E.*, Schain, M.*, Price, A.*, Aubrey, B.*, Feder, A.*, Emanual D.*, Cohen, A.*, Jensen, A.*, Gazula, H., Choe, G., Rao, A., Kim, C., Casto, C., Lora, F., Flinker, A., Devore, S., Doyle, W., Dugan, P., Friedman, D., Hassidim, A., Brenner, M., Matias, Y., Norman, K. A., Devinsky, O., & Hasson, U. (2022). Shared computational principles for language processing in humans and deep language models. Nature Neuroscience, 25, 369–380. DOI PDF

Mennen, A. C., Nastase, S. A., Yeshurun, Y., Hasson, U., Norman, K. A. (2022). Real-time neurofeedback to alter interpretations of a naturalistic narrative. NeuroImage: Reports, 2(3), 100111. DOI PDF

Williams, J. A., Margulis, E. H., Nastase, S. A., Chen, J., Hasson, U., Norman, K. A., Baldassano, C. (2021). High-order areas and auditory cortex both represent the high-level event structure of music. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 34(4), 699–714. DOI PDF

Nastase, S. A., Liu, Y.-F., Hillman, H., Zadbood, A., Hasenfratz, L., Keshavarzian, N., Chen, J., Honey, C. J., Yeshurun, Y., Regev, M., Nguyen, M., Chang, C. H. C., Baldassano, C., Lositsky, O., Simony, E., Chow, M. A., Leong, Y. C., Brooks, P. P., Micciche, E., Choe, G., Goldstein, A., Vanderwal, T., Halchenko, Y. O., Norman, K. A., & Hasson, U. (2021). The “Narratives” fMRI dataset for evaluating models of naturalistic language comprehension. Scientific Data, 8, 250. DOI PDF

Kumar, M., Anderson, M. J., Antony, J. W., Baldassano, C., Brooks, P. P., Cai, M. B., Chen, P.-H. C., Ellis, C. T., Henselman-Petrusek, G., Huberdeau, D., Hutchinson, J. B., Li, P. Y., Lu, Q., Manning, J. R., Mennen, A. C., Nastase, S. A., Richard, H., Schapiro, A. C., Schuck, N. W., Shvartsman, M., Sundaraman, N., Suo, D., Turek, J. S., Turner, D. M., Vo, V. A., Wallace, G., Wang, Y., Williams, J. A., Zhang, H., Zhu, X., Capota, M., Cohen, J. D., Hasson, U., Li, K., Ramadge, P. J., Turk-Browne, N. B., Willke, T. L., & Norman, K. A. (2021). BrainIAK: The Brain Imaging Analysis Kit. Aperture Neuro, 1(4). DOI PDF

Wu, A., Nastase S. A., Baldassano, C., Turk-Browne, N. B., Norman, K. A., Engelhardt, B. E., & Pillow, J. W. (2021). Brain kernel: a new spatial covariance function for fMRI data. NeuroImage, 245, 118580. DOI PDF

Nastase, S. A. (2021). Toward a more ecological cognitive neuroscience. The Brunswik Society Newsletter, 36, 46–48. link PDF

Nguyen, M., Chang, A., Micciche, E., Meshulam, M., Nastase, S. A., & Hasson, U. (2021). Teacher-student neural coupling during teaching and learning. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 17(4), 367–376. DOI PDF

Levitis, E., Gould van Praag, C. D., Gau, R., Heunis, S., DuPre, E., Kiar, G., Bottenhorn, K., Glatard, T., Nikolaidis, A., Whitaker, K. J., Mancini, M., Niso, G., Afyouni, S., Alonso-Ortiz, E., Appelhoff, S., Arnatkeviciute, A., Atay, S. M., Auer, T., Baracchini, G., Bayer, J. M. M., Beauvais, M. J. S., Bijsterbosch, J. D., Bilgin, I., P. Bollmann, S., Bollmann, S., Botvinik-Nezer, R., Bright, M. G., Calhoun, V. D., Chen, X., Chopra, S., Chuan-Peng, H., Close, T. G., Cookson, S. L., Craddock, R. C., De La Vega, A., De Leener, B., Demeter, D. V., Di Maio, P., Dickie, E. W., Eickhoff, S. B., Esteban, O., Finc, K., Frigo, M., Ganesan, S., Ganz, M., Garner, K. G., Garza-Villarreal, E. A., Gonzalez-Escamilla, G., Goswami, R., Griffiths, J. D., Grootswagers, T., Guay, S., Guest, O., Handwerker, D. A., Herholz, P., Heuer, K., Huijser, D. C., Iacovella, V., Joseph, M. J. E., Karakuzu, A., Keator, D. B., Kobeleva, X., Kumar, M., Laird, A. R., Larson-Prior, L. J., Lautarescu, A., Lazari, A., Haitz Legarreta, J., Li, X.-Y., Lv, J., Mansour, S., Meunier, D., Moraczewski, D., Nandi, T., Nastase, S. A., Nau, M., Noble, S., Norgaard, M., Obungoloch, J., Oostenveld, R., Orchard, E. R., Pinho, A. L., Poldrack, R. A., Qiu, A., Raamana, P. R., Rokem, A., Rutherford, S., Sharan, M., Shaw, T. B., Syeda, W. T., Testerman, M. M., Toro, R., Valk, S. L., Van Den Bossche, S., Varoquaux, G., Váša, F., Veldsman, M., Vohryzek, J., Wagner, A. S., Walsh, R. J., White, T., Wong, F.-T., Xie, X., Yan, C.-G., Yang, Y-.F., Yee, Y., Zanitti, G. E., Van Gulick, A. E., Duff, E., & Maumet, C. (2021). Centering inclusivity in the design of online conferences—An OHBM–Open Science perspective. GigaScience, 10(8), giab051. DOI PDF

Wilterson, A. I., Nastase, S. A., Bio, B. J., Guterstam, A., Graziano, M. S. A. (2021). Attention, awareness, and the right temporoparietal junction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118(25), e2026099118. DOI PDF

Gau, R., Noble, S., Heuer, K., Bottenhorn, K. L., Bilgin, I. P., Yang, Y.-F., Huntenburg, J. M., Bayer, J., Bethlehem, R. A. I., Rhoads, S. A., Vogelbacher, C., Borghesani, V., Levitis, E., Wang, H.-T., Van Den Bossche, S., Kobeleva, X., Haitz Legarreta, J., Guay, S., Atay, S. M., Varoquaux, G., Huijser, D. C., Sandström, M. S., Herholz, P., Nastase, S. A., Badhwar, A., Dumas, G., Schwab, S., Moia, S., Dayan, M., Bassil, Y., Brooks, P., Mancini, M., Shine, J. M., O’Connor, D., Xie, X., Poggiali, D., Friedrich, P., Riedl, L., Toro, R., Heinsfeld, A. S., Caballero-Gaudes, C., Eklund, A., Garner, K. G., Nolan, C. R., Demeter, D. V., Barrios, F. A., Merchant, J. S., McDevitt, E. A., Oostenveld, R., Craddock, R. C., Rokem, A., Doyle, A., Esper, N. B., Ghosh, S. S., Langs, G., Nikolaidis, A., Stanley, O. W., Uruñuela, E., Vohryzek, J., & The Brainhack Community. (2021). Brainhack: developing a culture of open, inclusive, community-driven neuroscience. Neuron, 109(11), 1769–1775. DOI PDF

Xie, E., Yin, Q., Li, K., Nastase, S. A., Zhang, R., Wang, N., & Li, X. (2021). Sharing happy stories increases interpersonal closeness: interpersonal brain synchronization as a neural indicator. eNeuro, 8(6). DOI PDF

Busch, E. L., Slipski, L., Feilong, M., Guntupalli, J. S., di Oleggio Castello, M. V., Huckins, J. F., Nastase, S. A., Gobbini, M. I., Wager, T., & Haxby, J. V. (2020). Hybrid hyperalignment: a single high-dimensional model of shared information embedded in cortical patterns of response and functional connectivity. NeuroImage, 233, 117975. DOI PDF

Nastase, S. A., Goldstein, A., & Hasson, U. (2020). Keep it real: rethinking the primacy of experimental control in cognitive neuroscience. NeuroImage, 222, 117254. DOI PDF

Haxby, J. V., Guntupalli, J. S., Nastase, S. A., & Feilong, M. (2020). Hyperalignment: modeling shared information encoded in idiosyncratic cortical topographies. eLife, 9, e56601. DOI PDF

Nastase, S. A., Liu, Y.-F., Hillman, H., Norman, K. A., & Hasson, U. (2020). Leveraging shared connectivity to aggregate heterogeneous datasets into a common response space. NeuroImage, 217, 116865. DOI PDF

Willems, R., Nastase, S. A., & Milivojevic, B. (2020). Narratives for neuroscience. Trends in Neurosciences, 43(5), 271–273. DOI PDF

Hasson, U., Nastase, S. A., & Goldstein, A. (2020). Direct fit to nature: an evolutionary perspective on biological and artificial neural networks. Neuron, 105(3), 416–434. DOI PDF

Haxby, J. V., Gobbini, M. I., & Nastase, S. A. (2020). Naturalistic stimuli reveal a dominant role for agentic action in visual representation. NeuroImage, 216, 116561. DOI PDF

Nastase, S. A., Gazzola, V., Hasson, U., & Keysers, C. (2019). Measuring shared responses across subjects using intersubject correlation. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 14(6), 667–685. DOI PDF

Lin, X., Sur, I., Nastase, S. A., Divakaran, A., Hasson, U., & Amer, M. R. (2019). Data-efficient mutual information neural estimator. arXiv, arXiv:1905.03319. DOI PDF

Feilong, M., Nastase, S. A., Guntupalli, J. S., Haxby, J. V. (2018). Reliable individual difference in fine-grained cortical functional architecture. NeuroImage, 138, 375–386. DOI PDF

Nastase, S. A.*, Van Uden, C. E.*, Connolly, A. C., Feilong, M., Hansen, I., Gobbini, M. I., Haxby, J. V. (2018). Modeling semantic encoding in a common neural representational space. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 12, 437. DOI PDF

Nastase, S. A., Halchenko, Y. O., Connolly, A. C., Gobbini, M. I., Haxby, J. V. (2018). Neural responses to naturalistic clips of behaving animals in two different task contexts. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 12, 316. DOI PDF

Nastase, S. A., Davis, B., Hasson, U. (2018). Cross-modal and non-monotonic representations of statistical regularity are encoded in local neural response patterns. NeuroImage, 173, 509–517. DOI PDF

Nastase, S. A., Connolly, A. C., Oosterhof, N. N., Halchenko, Y. O., Guntupalli, J. S., Visconti di Oleggio Castello, M., Gors, J., Gobbini, M. I., & Haxby, J. V. (2017). Attention selectively reshapes the geometry of distributed semantic representation. Cerebral Cortex, 27(8), 4277–4291. DOI PDF

Nastase, S. A., & Haxby, J. V. (2017). Structural Basis of Semantic Memory. In J. H. Byrne (Ed.), Learning and Memory: A Comprehensive Reference (2nd ed., pp. 133–151). Cambridge, MA: Academic Press. DOI PDF

Nastase, S. A., Davis, B., Halchenko, Y. O., & Hasson, U. (2016). Cross-modal searchlight classification: methodological challenges and recommended solutions. Paper presented at the 2016 IEEE International Workshop on Pattern Recognition in Neuroimaging (PRNI). DOI PDF

Connolly, A. C., Sha, L., Guntupalli, J. S., Oosterhof, N. N., Halchenko, Y. O., Nastase, S. A., Visconti di Oleggio Castello, M., Abdi, H., Jobst, B. C., Gobbini, M. I., & Haxby, J. V. (2016). How the human brain represents perceived dangerousness or “predacity” of animals. Journal of Neuroscience, 36(19), 5373–5384. DOI PDF

Nastase, S. A., Iacovella, V., Davis, B., and Hasson, U. (2015). Connectivity in the human brain dissociates entropy and complexity of auditory inputs. NeuroImage, 108, 292–300. DOI PDF

Nastase, S. A., Iacovella, V. and Hasson, U. (2014). Uncertainty in visual and auditory series is coded by modality-general and modality-specific neural systems. Human Brain Mapping, 35(4), 1111–1128. DOI PDF

Open data

OpenNeuro ds005574
Zada, Z., Nastase, S. A., Aubrey, B., Jalon, I., Michelmann, S., Wang, H., Hasenfratz, L., Doyle, W., Friedman, D., Dugan, P., Melloni, L., Devore, S., Flinker, A., Devinsky, O., Goldstein, A., & Hasson, U. (2025). The “Podcast” ECoG dataset for modeling neural activity during natural story listening. DOI

OpenNeuro ds002345
Nastase, S. A., Liu, Y.-F., Hillman, H., Zadbood, A., Hasenfratz, L., Keshavarzian, N., Chen, J., Honey, C. J., Yeshurun, Y., Regev, M., Nguyen, M., Chang, C. H. C., Baldassano, C. B., Lositsky, O., Simony, E., Chow, M. A., Leong, Y. C., Brooks, P. P., Micciche, E., Choe, G., Goldstein, A., Halchenko, Y. O., Norman, K. A., & Hasson, U. Narratives: fMRI data for evaluating models of naturalistic language comprehension. DOI

OpenNeuro ds000233
Nastase, S. A., Halchenko, Y. O., Connolly, A. C., Gobbini, M. I., Haxby, J. V. (2018). Neural responses to naturalistic clips of behaving animals in two different task contexts. DOI

Open code

Predicting brain activity from word embeddings during natural language comprehension
Nastase, S. A., Zada, Z., & Hasson, U. (2023). Predicting brain activity from word embeddings during natural language comprehension. GitHub

Brain Imaging Analysis Kit (BrainIAK)
Kumar, M., Anderson, M. J., Antony, J. W., Baldassano, C., Brooks, P. P., Cai, M. B., Chen, P.-H. C., Ellis, C. T., Henselman-Petrusek, G., Huberdeau, D., Hutchinson, J. B., Li, P. Y., Lu, Q., Manning, J. R., Mennen, A. C., Nastase, S. A., Richard, H., Schapiro, A. C., Schuck, N. W., Shvartsman, M., Sundaraman, N., Suo, D., Turek, J. S., Vo, V. A., Wallace, G., Wang, Y., Zhang, H., Zhu, X., Capota, M., Cohen, J. D., Hasson, U., Li, K., Ramadge, P. J., Turk-Browne, N. B., Willke, T. L., & Norman, K. A. (2020) BrainIAK: The Brain Imaging Analysis Kit. DOI website GitHub

Princeton Handbook for Reproducible Neuroimaging
Brooks, P. P., McDevitt, E. A., Mennen, A. C., Visconti di Oleggio Castello, M., & Nastase, S. A.. (2020). Princeton Handbook for Reproducible Neuroimaging. DOI Handbook

Intersubject correlation tutorial
Nastase, S. A., Gazzola, V., Hasson, U., & Keysers, C. (2019). Measuring shared responses across subjects using intersubject correlation. DOI GitHub

Teaching

Instructor—Neural and Cognitive Data Science 2026–present
University of Southern California website

Instructor—Computational Language Neuroscience 2026–present
University of Southern California website

Instructor—Neuroscience Honors Seminar and Honors Thesis 2025–2026
University of Southern California

Lecturer—Cognitive Computational Neuroscience 2021–2025
Princeton University (co-lecturers: Jonathan Cohen, Leigh Nystrom) website

Lecturer—Mathematical Tools for Neuroscience 2022
Princeton University website

Past funding and awards

NIH CRCNS R01-DC022534 (PI: Uri Hasson) 2024–2025
Building and testing computational models of the neural basis of natural communication

Neurobiology of Language Workshop Travel Award 2024
National Science Foundation, MIT Press

NIH DP1-HD091948 (PI: Uri Hasson) 2023–2024
Speaker-listener coupling: a novel neural approach for assessing communication

NIH R01-MH112566 (PI: Uri Hasson) 2019–2022
Brain-to-brain dynamical coupling: a new framework for the communication of social knowledge

ReproNim/INCF Fellow 2019
ReproNim: A Center for Reproducible Neuroimaging Computation
International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF)

DARPA FA8750-18-C-0213 (PI: Mohamed Amer) 2018
Brain-to-brain coupling using temporal representation learning

OHBM Merit Abstract Award 2015
Organization for Human Brain Mapping

Neukom Travel Grant 2015
The William H. Neukom Institute for Computational Science

Marie A. Center 1982 Graduate Award for Excellence in Teaching 2014
Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College

Student Council Conference Travel Grant 2014
Graduate Student Council, Dartmouth College

Graduate Travel Award 2014
Dartmouth Graduate Studies, Dartmouth College

OHBM Trainee Abstract Travel Award 2014
Organization for Human Brain Mapping

Merit Award 2012
Psychology & Cognitive Sciences Department, University of Trento

Community

Peer review: Acta Psychologica, Behavior Research Methods, Brain and Cognition, Brain and Language, Brain Structure and Function, Cambridge University Press, Canada Foundation for Innovation, Cell Press, Cerebral Cortex, Cognitive Science, Cognitive Science Society, Communications Biology, Computers in Human Behavior, Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience, Cortex, Current Biology, eLife, European Journal of Neuroscience, European Research Council, Frontiers in Neuroscience, German Research Foundation, Human Brain Mapping, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, Imaging Neuroscience, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, Journal of Neurophysiology, Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of Open Source Software, Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, Mind, Brain, and Education, National Science Foundation, Nature, Nature Communications, Nature Computational Science, Nature Human Behaviour, Nature Machine Intelligence, Nature Neuroscience, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, NeuroImage, NeuroImage: Reports, Neuron, Neuropsychologia, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, Organization for Human Brain Mapping, PLOS Biology, PLOS Computational Biology, PLOS One, Princeton University Press, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Psychological Review, Psychophysiology, Royal Society Open Science, Science, Science Advances, Science Bulletin, Scientific Data, Scientific Reports, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Social Neuroscience, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Trends in Neurosciences, UK Research and Innovation

Editor: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Conferences: Cognitive Computational Neuroscience (CCN), Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM), Society for Neuroscience (SfN), Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL)

Mentorship
EuiYoung Kim, graduate student, Shared Minds Lab, University of Southern California
Sajjad Torabian, postdoctoral scholar, Shared Minds Lab, University of Southern California
Landi Jiang, undergraduate student, Shared Minds Lab, University of Southern California
April Luo, graduate student, Read Lab, University of Southern California
Ahmad Samara, graduate student, Vanderwal Lab, University of British Columbia
Arnab Bhattacharjee, graduate student, Hasson Lab, Princeton University
Yibei Chen, graduate student, Media Neuroscience Lab, UC Santa Barbara
Isaac Christian, graduate student, Graziano Lab, Princeton University
Yingying Peng, graduate student, Li Lab, Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Chanyuan Gu, graduate student, Li Lab, Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Zaid Zada, graduate student, Hasson Lab, Princeton University
Sade Abiodun, graduate student, Hasson Lab, Princeton University
Jane Han, graduate student, Haxby Lab, Dartmouth College
Heejung Jung, graduate student, Haxby Lab, Dartmouth College
Victoria Graf, undergraduate research assistant, Hasson Lab, Princeton University
Andrew Goldberg, undergraduate research assistant, Hasson Lab, Princeton University
Daniella Cohen, undergraduate senior thesis, Hasson Lab, Princeton Univeristy
Joe Chen, undergradate senior thesis, Hasson Lab, Princeton University
Jamal Williams, graduate student, Norman Lab, Princeton University
Paula Brooks, graduate student, Norman Lab, Princeton University
Anne Mennen, graduate student, Norman Lab, Princeton University
Anqi Wu, graduate student, Pillow Lab, Princeton University
Cara E. Van Uden, undergraduate research assistant, Haxby Lab, Dartmouth College
Rebecca E. Philip, undergraduate research assistant, Gobbini Lab, Dartmouth College

Collaborations
Prof. Dani Byrd, Department of Linguistics, University of Southern California
Prof. Shrikanth Narayanan, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Southern California
Prof. M. Ida Gobbini, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Bologna
Prof. Ping Li, Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Prof. Tamara Vanderwal, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia
Prof. Michael S. A. Graziano, Department of Psychology, Princeton University
Prof. Thomas L. Griffiths, Department of Psychology, Princeton University
Prof. Yaroslav O. Halchenko, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College
Prof. James V. Haxby, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College

Events
Center for Computational Language Sciences at USC—co-director (2025–present)
Neuroscience Graduate Program (NGP) at USC—faculty (2025–present)
Journal of Neuroscience Journal Club—mentor (2025)
Cognitive Computational Neuroscience Proceedings Track—area chair (2025)
OHBM Naturalistic Neuroimaging Workgroup—contributor (2024–present)
NSF Cognitive Neuroscience FY 2024 Review Panel—panelist (2024)
Princeton University Responsible Conduct of Research Guide—contributor (2023)
Brainhack Princeton 2020, Princeton University—organizer (2020)
Neuroimaging Analysis Methods (NIAM) seminar series, Princeton University—organizer (2019–2020)
Brainhack Princeton 2019, Princeton University—organizer (2019)
Dartmouth CCN Workshop, Dartmouth College—organizer (2019)
Neurohackademy, University of Washington—attendee (2019)
Kavli Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience—attendee (2019)
OHBM Brainhack 2019, Rome—attendee (2019)
Pygers Reproducible Neuroimaging support group—organizer (2018—2022)
OHBM Brainhack 2018, Singapore—attendee (2018)
Dartmouth CCN Workshop, Dartmouth College—organizer (2017)
Brainhack Dartmouth 2017, Dartmouth College—organizer (2017)
Brainhack LA 2016, UCLA—attendee (2016)
Dartmouth CCN Workshop, Dartmouth College—organizer (2016)
AFNI Boot Camp, Dartmouth College—organizer (2016)
Professional Ethics Program, Dartmouth College—instructor (2014)
AFNI Boot Camp, Dartmouth College—organizer (2014)
Cognitive Brown Bag symposium series, Dartmouth College—organizer (2014–2016)
fMRI Brown Bag symposium series, Dartmouth College—organizer (2013–2017)