Saarang Panchavati

Hi! I’m Saarang. I completed my PhD at UCLA in May 2026, advised by Dr. William Speier, where I used deep learning to better understand the brain (and sometimes vice versa). I’m now joining Google DeepMind, working on open-source medical AI.

cv · scholar · email

research focus

At UCLA, I focused on three main questions:

Can we develop a foundation model for EEG that is useful for clinical applications?
Can we uncover how seizures are modulated?
Can we use deep learning to identify biomarkers and guide epilepsy treatment protocols?

current work

I’m also interested in more fundamental neuroscience questions, like “how does the brain process information?” During my PhD, I spent six months in London interning with the BrainAI team at Meta FAIR, where I worked on new approaches to this problem (paper coming soon!).

selected publications

Uncovering spatiotemporal dynamics of the corticothalamic network at ictal onset

Saarang Panchavati, Atsuro Daida, Benjamin Edmonds, and 8 more authors

Epilepsia, 2024

Bib

@article{panchavati2024uncovering,
  title = {Uncovering spatiotemporal dynamics of the corticothalamic network at ictal onset},
  author = {Panchavati, Saarang and Daida, Atsuro and Edmonds, Benjamin and Miyakoshi, Makoto and Oana, Shingo and Ahn, Samuel S and Arnold, Corey and Salamon, Noriko and Sankar, Raman and Fallah, Aria and others},
  journal = {Epilepsia},
  volume = {65},
  number = {7},
  pages = {1989--2003},
  year = {2024},
}

Distinct Spectral and Directional Thalamocortical Network Dynamics Define Focal Seizure Evolution

Saarang Panchavati, Atsuro Daida, Sotaro Kanai, and 8 more authors

medRxiv, 2026

Bib

@article{panchavati2026distinct,
  title = {Distinct Spectral and Directional Thalamocortical Network Dynamics Define Focal Seizure Evolution},
  author = {Panchavati, Saarang and Daida, Atsuro and Kanai, Sotaro and Oana, Shingo and Ono, Hiroya and Izumi, Masaki and Kaneko, Kikuko and Fallah, Aria and Qiao, Joe X and Salamon, Noriko and others},
  journal = {medRxiv},
  pages = {2026--02},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press},
}

Laya: A LeJEPA approach to EEG via latent prediction over reconstruction

Saarang Panchavati, Uddhav Panchavati, Hiroki Nariai, and 2 more authors

arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.16281, 2026

Bib

@article{panchavati2026laya,
  title = {Laya: A LeJEPA approach to EEG via latent prediction over reconstruction},
  author = {Panchavati, Saarang and Panchavati, Uddhav and Nariai, Hiroki and Arnold, Corey and Speier, William},
  journal = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.16281},
  year = {2026},
}

news

Mar 2025 Started an internship with the BrainAI team at FAIR!

about me

I’m also a struggling Arsenal fan (is this our year???????), and I like composing for piano, singing Indian classical music, taking pictures of plants (@plantchavati), and training for more half marathons. If I wasn’t doing this, I’d probably study history (current favorite podcast).