Omer Moussa

PhD Student @mpi_sws_; CS@MaxPlanck -- ML and CogNeurosci Enthusiast -- Computer Engineering @AUC.

[Michael Hahn @mhahn29]

We have 1-2 more extra spots due to new funding -- apply by end of April!

[Micha Heilbron @m_heilb]

Interested in pursuing a PhD in NLP/cog-sci? Studying language learning in LMs from the perspective of human language acquisition?

Check out this position -- few more days to apply!!
(plz RT!) ⬇️⬇️⬇️

[Micha Heilbron @m_heilb]

📢 PhD position in Developmental Language Modelling (plz RT🙏)

What can human language acquisition teach us about training language models? Join us as a PhD!

4 yrs, fully funded, MPI-NL; april 3

https://t.co/BCCap6MzPh

[Abhilasha Ravichander @lasha_nlp]

📢 I'm recruiting PhD students at MPI!!

Topics include:
1⃣ LLM factuality, reliable info synthesis and reasoning, personalization + applications in real-world inc. education, science
2⃣ Data-centric interpretability
3⃣Creativity in AI, esp scientific applications 🧵1/2

[Omer Moussa @ohmoussa2]

@mtoneva1 Fantastic News! Congratulations - Well deserved!! 🎉🎉

Very excited to participate in working in that direction!

[Mariya Toneva @mtoneva1]

So excited and honored to receive an ERC Starting Grant for the project BrainAlign!! BrainAlign will bring LLMs closer to human understanding by directly aligning them with the human brain.

Stay tuned for our findings, and multiple postdoc and PhD openings in the coming years!

[Omer Moussa @ohmoussa2]

@mtoneva1 Thank you so much, Mariya! for all the support.
More exciting things to come soon 🦾!

[Omer Moussa @ohmoussa2]

If you are attending @ISCAInterspeech, I will be giving a talk today on this work, where we show that brain-tuning speech models leads to brain-like processing stages.

Looking forward to the discussion and questions!

🗓️ Aug 19, 16:00.

📍Port 1A (Area 01)

#Interspeech2025

[Omer Moussa @ohmoussa2]

🚨Excited to share our latest work published at Interspeech 2025: “Brain-tuned Speech Models Better Reflect Speech Processing Stages in the Brain”! 🧠🎧
https://t.co/LeCs6YfbZp
W/ @mtoneva1
We fine-tuned speech models directly with brain fMRI data, making them more brain-like.🧵

[Omer Moussa @ohmoussa2]

@mtoneva1 7/
For more information, check our paper on Arxiv. Many thanks to Prof. @mtoneva1 for her close supervision and incredible effort in this work. Stay tuned for more cool brain-tuning work to come!

[Omer Moussa @ohmoussa2]

🚨Excited to share our latest work published at Interspeech 2025: “Brain-tuned Speech Models Better Reflect Speech Processing Stages in the Brain”! 🧠🎧
https://t.co/LeCs6YfbZp
W/ @mtoneva1
We fine-tuned speech models directly with brain fMRI data, making them more brain-like.🧵

[Omer Moussa @ohmoussa2]

@mtoneva1 6/
Impressively, brain-tuning not only changes the hierarchy to be more brain-like but also enhances brain alignment and downstream performance, leading to more effective model organisms than existing pretrained models, which lag behind in performance and semantic hierarchy.

[Omer Moussa @ohmoussa2]

@iclr_conf ICLR Project page: https://t.co/49uU6IyUwU

[Omer Moussa @ohmoussa2]

If you are attending @iclr_conf, come check out our poster on brain-tuning, a work where we show that fine-tuning speech models with brain data improves their semantic understanding and downstream performance!

🗓️ Apr 26. 10 am-12:30.
📌Hall 3 + Hall 2B #62

#ICLR2025

[Omer Moussa @ohmoussa2]

We are so excited to share the first work that demonstrates consistent downstream improvements for language tasks after fine-tuning with brain data!!
Improving semantic understanding in speech language models via brain-tuning
https://t.co/HVAzk36Wga

W/ @dklakow, @mtoneva1

[Omer Moussa @ohmoussa2]

@dklakow @mtoneva1 10/ Huge thanks to all authors for their incredible effort and feedback, especially to Prof. @mtoneva1 for having me in her lab during this project and for her close supervision and feedback that taught me a great deal!

[Omer Moussa @ohmoussa2]

We are so excited to share the first work that demonstrates consistent downstream improvements for language tasks after fine-tuning with brain data!!
Improving semantic understanding in speech language models via brain-tuning
https://t.co/HVAzk36Wga

W/ @dklakow, @mtoneva1

[Omer Moussa @ohmoussa2]

@dklakow @mtoneva1 9/ These results provide converging evidence for increased semantics in speech models after brain-tuning. For more details, please check out the paper on Arxiv!