Hi, I'm Shaida Abachi!

I am currently a contract User Experience Research Scientist at Meta Reality Labs. In my role, I design and conduct qualitative and quantitative research. The areas of study surrounding my research programs are visual perception relating to optical components of virtual and augmented reality devices.

I earned my Ph.D. in Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, where I studied the neural computations underlying perceptual metacognition in humans using fMRI. My current interests surround visual perception and metacognition—ultimately to better understand how they work so we can know why they break (i.e., disorders of cognition). I have always been motivated to study human behavior, specifically how we make decisions.

I recieved my B.S. in Neuroscience from The Univeristy of California, Riverside. Throughout undergrad, I investigated how microglial mechanisms that detect neuronal injury might change throughout early development in mice. Although that work was quite different from my current graduate work, I believe I've gotten a better idea of studying the brain from both top-down or bottom-up approaches. There is no single right way to study the brain—there are many ways to tackle the same questions.

Overall, I have a passion for understanding brains, behavior, and data.

When I'm not conducting research, I’m probably playing video games :)