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Visiting PhD Student at Prof. Fyshe's Lab

University of Alberta & Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii)

Department of Computing Science

• Vision-Language Models
• Compositionality
• Neural Encoding
• Knowledge Graph Representation Learning
• Functional MRI

Interdisciplinary PhD Student & Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (FWO) Fellow

KU Leuven

Departments of Neurosciences and Computer Science

• Natural Language Processing
• Neurolinguistics
• Neural Encoding
• Alzheimer's Disease
• Connected Speech
• Functional MRI

Master of Science in Computer Science

Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences

• Natural Language Processing
• Bioinformatics
• Alzheimer's Disease
• Knowledge Graphs

Visiting Undergraduate Student at Prof. Beiko's Lab

Dalhousie University

• Metagenomics
• Bioinformatics
• Machine Learning

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science

Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences

• Bioinformatics
• Software Engineering
• Machine Learning

Student Research Assistant

Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI)

Bioinformatics Department

• Implemented natural language processing methods in biomedical contexts and developed machine learning approaches for Alzheimer's Disease diagnosis.

Teaching Assistant

Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences

Introduction to Probability Theory and Statistics

• Led exercise sessions for cohorts of 60+ students per year covering Python programming and core statistics concepts.

Tutor

Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences

Introductory Computer Science Courses

• Assisted students with assignment submissions and exam preparation across multiple introductory computer science courses.

Natural Language Processing in the Human Brain

University of Antwerp Computational Linguistics, Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics (CLiPS) Colloquium

Best oral presentation

CURE-ND early researchers workshop

PhD fellowship fundamental research

Research Foundation Flanders (FWO)

Individual PhD fellowship (120,000€ over the span of four years)

Studienpreis

Anwenderforum für Fernmeldetechnik, Computer, Elektronik und Automatisierung Bonn e.V.

Award for the best master's thesis in applied computer science across multiple universities around Bonn (5,000€)

Deutschlandstipendium

Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences

Yearly scholarship awarded to high-scoring students (300€ monthly, 3 years)

Förderpreis der Fördergesellschaft der Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg (Best Thesis Award)

Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences

Award for the best bachelor's thesis in the computer science department (1,000€)

International Study and Training Partnerships scholarship

German Academic Exchange Service, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences

Scholarship awarded for studying abroad at the Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada (800€ monthly, 4 months)

Compositional Complexity in Text and Images

Neurobiology of Language (Stage 1 In-Principle Acceptance)

Helena Balabin, Antonietta Gabriella Liuzzi, Kevin Statz, Marie-Francine Moens, Patrick Dupont, Rik Vandenberghe

Evaluating Language Model Embeddings for Parkinson's Disease Cohort Harmonization Using a Novel Manually Curated Variable Mapping Schema

Scientific Reports

Yasamin Salimi, Tim Adams, Mehmet Can Ay, Helena Balabin, Marc Jacobs, Martin Hofmann-Apitius

Natural Language Processing-Based Classification of Early Alzheimer's Disease from Connected Speech

Alzheimer's & Dementia

Helena Balabin, Bastiaan Tamm, Laure Spruyt, Nathalie Dusart, Ines Kabouche, Ella Eycken, Kevin Statz, Steffi De Meyer, Hugo Van Hamme, Patrick Dupont, Marie-Francine Moens, Rik Vandenberghe

Semantic Harmonization of Alzheimer's Disease Datasets Using AD-Mapper

Journal of Alzheimer's Disease

Philipp Wegner, Helena Balabin, Mehmet Can Ay, Sarah Bauermeister, Lewis Killin, John Gallacher, Martin Hofmann-Apitius, Yasamin Salimi

A Comparative Analysis of Language Models for the Classification of Alzheimer's Disease Based on Connected Speech

Proceedings of the First Workshop on Artificial Intelligence for Brain Encoding and Decoding at the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence

Helena Balabin, Laure Spruyt, Ella Eycken, Ines Kabouche, Bastiaan Tamm, Jolien Schaeverbeke, Patrick Dupont, Marie-Francine Moens, Rik Vandenberghe

Investigating Neural Fit Approaches for Sentence Embedding Model Paradigms

Proceedings of the 26th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence

Helena Balabin, Antonietta Gabriella Liuzzi, Jingyuan Sun, Patrick Dupont, Rik Vandenberghe, Marie-Francine Moens

How Relevant Is Selective Memory Population in Lifelong Language Learning?

Proceedings of the 2nd Conference of the Asia-Pacific Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics and the 12th International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing

Vladimir Araujo, Helena Balabin, Julio Hurtado, Alvaro Soto, Marie-Francine Moens

Pre-trained Speech Representations as Feature Extractors for Speech Quality Assessment in Online Conferencing Applications

Interspeech 2022

Bastiaan Tamm, Helena Balabin, Rik Vandenberghe, Hugo Van Hamme

Deep Learning-based Detection of Psychiatric Attributes from German Mental Health Records

International Journal of Medical Informatics

Sumit Madan, Fabian Julius Zimmer, Helena Balabin, Sebastian Schaaf, Holger Froehlich, Juliane Fluck, Irene Neuner, Klaus Mathiak, Martin Hofmann-Apitius, Pegah Sarkheil

STonKGs: A Sophisticated Transformer Trained on Biomedical Text and Knowledge Graphs

Bioinformatics

Helena Balabin, Charles Tapley Hoyt, Colin Birkenbihl, Benjamin M Gyori, John Bachman, Alpha Tom Kodamullil, Paul G Ploeger, Martin Hofmann-Apitius, Daniel Domingo-Fernandez

ProtSTonKGs: A Sophisticated Transformer Trained on Protein Sequences, Text, and Knowledge Graphs

Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Semantic Web Applications and Tools for Life Sciences

Helena Balabin, Charles Tapley Hoyt, Benjamin M Gyori, John Bachman, Alpha Tom Kodamullil, Martin Hofmann-Apitius, Daniel Domingo-Fernandez

The COVID-19 Ontology

Bioinformatics

Astghik Sargsyan, Alpha Tom Kodamullil, Shounak Baksi, Johannes Darms, Sumit Madan, Stephan Gebel, Oliver Keminer, Geena Mariya Jose, Helena Balabin, Lauren Nicole DeLong, Manfred Kohler, Marc Jacobs, Martin Hofmann-Apitius