Marie Zelenina

I approach meaningful problems in mental health and pain research from a multidisciplinary perspective, drawing on my background in Neurobiology, psychometrics, and AI.

I am currently a postdoc at Dr Lauren Atlas' Affective Neuroscience and Pain Lab at NIH/NCCIH, where I apply data science and machine learning tools to videos of facial expressions people experiencing pain. The project is in collaboration with NIMH Machine Learning Core.

CONTACT [first].[last]@nih.gov LinkedIn Google Scholar Github

Hi, I am Marie! My multidisciplinary background combines familiarity with advanced computational and data analysis tools (MSc AI), understanding of biological mechanisms in health and disease (MSc Neurobiology), and experience with cutting-edge experimental tools and measurements (PhD Biomedical Engineering). This combination positions me to approach complex problems in human health in a comprehensive, integrated way. My ambition is to step away from the reductionist approach of treating intertwined problems as separate, and to understand the common mechanisms that underlie them.), to approach meaningful challenges in the domain of health and medicine - particularly in mental health and pain research. My current research focuses on the intersection of affective neuroscience, psychopathology, and pain. Depression is one of the main causes of disability worldwide (WHO). Pain affects more people than diabetes, heart disease, and cancer combined (CDC). Depression and pain often occur together and amplify each other, suggesting shared underlying biological mechanisms, causal relationships, and potential bidirectional influences. Treating comorbid pain and depression together is a particular challenge. In my current work, I apply machine learning and computer vision to videos of people in pain, to better understand how facial expressions reflect pain experience. My previous work focused on the measurement of psychopathology, particularly the relationship between psychiatric assessments, underlying psychological constructs, and patients' experiences. During my PhD at NIMH, I combined psychometric methods and latent variable modeling applied to hierarchical models of psychopathology that goes beyond a single diagnosis. I worked with multiple large datasets to validate depression measurements and gather insights in topics such as informant discrepancy (parent-child disagreement on whether the child is depressed).

My technical skillset includes version control (git), bash, Python (my language of choice, + numpy, pandas, Keras, psychopy...), R and R wrappers in python, Matlab (+ Psychtoolbox).
I have used SPSS before, but if you want me to do stats in SPSS I'll likely just recode it in R. I have hands-on experience with data collection (EEG, *mild* MRI exposure, quantitative sensory testing).

I have bipolar disorder type 1, which makes me extra passionate about mental health research, gives me personal insights, and motivates my interest in academic resilience.

Outside of research, I enjoy spending time in nature (hiking, backpacking, camping) and board games. I love reading, traveling (I have lived in four countries and
I am currently enjoying exploring the US), theatre and art museums.

Awards

2025: Postdoc fellowship at NCCIH, NIH, USA.
2025: I defended my PhD with Distinction.
2025: HiTOP Trainee Research Award (awarded by the HiTOP consortium for my flash talk at the 2025 HiTOP conference; covered conference registration and 1 yr HiTOP membership)
2024: Finalist in the elevator pitch competition at NIH 2024 GPP Symposium
2020: PhD Fellowship at NIMH, NIH, USA

2012: Honorary Scholarship of the Russian Government, Ministry of Education of Russia, Russia
2010: ITMO University scholarship for excellent academic performance, ITMO, Russia

People I learned from

Publications

Mentorship

Education

• PhD Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering | 2020 - 2025 | University of Lisbon, Portugal
• MSc Neurobiology | 2016 - 2018 | University of Porto, Portugal
• MSc Artificial Intelligence | 2013 - 2014 | University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
• Undergraduate in Translation and Interpreting | 2011 - 2013 | St Petersburg State University, St Petersburg, Russia
• Undergraduate in Information Security | 2007 - 2012 | ITMO University, St Petersburg, Russia

Research experience in neuroscience and (mental) health research

• Postdoc | 2025 - | NIH, NCCIH, Affective Neuroscience and Pain Lab (PI: Dr Lauren Atlas) | USA
• Pre-Doc | 2020 - 2025 | NIH, NIMH, Section of Development and Affective Neuroscience (PI: Dr Daniel Pine, Mentor: Dr Dylan Nielson) | USA
• Researcher | 2018 - 2020 | University of Lisbon, The Institute of Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering (IBEB), Biomedical Neuroscience Lab (PI: Dr Diana Prata) | Portugal
• Graduate Researcher | 2017 - 2018 | Instituto de Medicina Molecular João Lobo Antunes (iMM) (PI: Dr Diana Prata) | Portugal

Other experience

• Research Engineer (computer science) | 2015 - 2016, part-time | ITMO University (PI: Dmitry Mouromtsev) | Russia
• Student Research Intern (natural language processing) | 2015 | Charles University in Prague (Supervisoirs: Jirka Hana, Ondrej Bojar) | Czech Republic

• Research Intern (ML, NLP) | 2015 - 2016 | Unbabel (Supervisoir: Andre Martins) | Portugal
• Research Intern (ML, NLP) | 2015 | Priberam (Supervisoir: Andre Martins) | Portugal

• Analyst in the Department for Innovations and Project Management | 2012 - 2013 | ITMO University | Russia