Satu Palva has served as NC's director since January 2024. She has been conducting research within the unit as a principal investigator of her own research group since 2011. Her research in systems and computational neuroscience with special expertise in magnetoencephalography (MEG) focuses on understanding brain's complex dynamics and large-scale network activities.
Contact the director by emailing nc-director@helsinki.fi
Dr. Olli Pietiläinen, PhD was appointed as the vice director of NC starting from September 1, 2025. An expert in complex disease genetics and functional genomics, his work focuses on uncovering biological mechanisms of severe neuropsychiatric disorders. Pietiläinen joined NC as a Group Leader in 2020. He supports the NC Director in the development of NC as a whole and acts as director’s deputy.
Satu Palva
Sari Lauri (sari.lauri@helsinki.fi)
Olli Pietiläinen (olli.pietiläinen@helsinki.fi)
Nelson Totah (nelson.totah@helsinki.fi)
NC's support staff work both inside and outside the lab to ensure that daily operations run smoothly for everyone in the unit. Support staff includes laboratory technicians, administrative coordinators and engineers.
You can reach the NC technical staff by emailing grp-a91600-nc-technicians@helsinki.fi.
Neuroscience Center SAB for the term 1 January 2023 – 31 December 2026:
The PhD and Postdoc Council functions as the voice of the general staff working together with different administrative levels. They plan different events in the unit. Here are the current members and their responsibilities.
The co-chairs organize meetings with the council to oversee the plans being made in each sub-committee. They are the NC trainee representative at PI meetings where they give feedback on NC functioning and receive feedback on events planned. The co-chairs provide support to the committees when needed and request funds from the NC director as required.
The Professional Development team is responsible for organizing seminars focused on self-improvement in areas such as grant writing, CV building, and planning for the future.
The Social Development team is responsible for community building within and outside the NC. This includes less-formal get-togethers like board game nights and bar visits, and more official events such as the NC Summer Day, the NC Holiday party, and mixers with FIMM.
Code Club organizes application-based workshops on common and cutting-edge analysis tools. These sessions involve a theoretical introduction to how the analysis tool processes data, followed by a case study with example data being analyzed in the workshop.
The Internal Seminars give trainees the opportunity to present their research to their peers for practice and feedback. These seminars can be used for practicing a defense, getting advice for a block in the project, or simply as a way to practice presentations in a comfortable environment. Presenting in internal seminars also gives an opportunity for credits in the case of PhD students (course code NEUBM-507).