Join us
Join the lab
Information on graduate study, postdoctoral work, and undergraduate internships. Please email to ask about current openings. Formal graduate admission follows SNU’s admissions schedule.
How to applyLearning to frame your own questions
We aim to develop researchers who can identify an important problem and learn the knowledge and skills needed to pursue it. A large ambition needs a path into today’s experiment and this week’s learning. Asking colleagues for help, learning from their strengths, and seeing a study through to completion are part of that work.
Time spent reconsidering a question is part of research. We value making room to focus on important problems, sharing where we are stuck, and changing direction in search of a better explanation.
AI expands how much we can read, build, and test. It also raises what we expect from our questions and their evaluation. Researchers take responsibility for challenging their assumptions, considering other explanations, and leaving work in forms that others can examine, including papers and code.
Degree programs
Graduate programs
Interdisciplinary Program in AI (IPAI)
Develop AI that learns from brain activity to study cognition and behavior, including fMRI and EEG foundation models and spatiotemporal learning.
Dept. of Brain & Cognitive Sciences (BCS)
Study how cognition and emotion relate to brain activity through fMRI, EEG, experiments, and computational models.
Department of Psychology
Study individual differences in development and mental health through relationships among genes, brain, behavior, and environment.
Undergraduate internships
Research internships
Intern projects have included quantum machine learning, EEG foundation models, and imaging genetics. Please email to ask about current openings and project requirements.
Applications
How to apply
What to send
- Curriculum vitae: education, research experience, projects, and technical skills
- Transcripts
- One or two paragraphs about a phenomenon that interests you, why it matters, and the question you would like to pursue in this lab
Where to send it
Send your documents to the address below. Interviews are arranged after application review. You may apply in English.
connectome@snu.ac.krFrequently asked questions
Applications and lab life
How do I apply for graduate study or an internship?
Applying for graduate study and internships:
- Three tracks: ① Department of Psychology, SNU ② Interdisciplinary Program in AI (IPAI) ③ Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences (BCS)
- Backgrounds we welcome: psychology, AI, computer science, statistics, medicine, physics, life sciences, and more
- How to apply: send a CV, transcripts, and one or two paragraphs on the research that draws you to connectome@snu.ac.kr. Please contact the lab about current openings and the next steps. International applicants are welcome to apply in English.
What is life in the lab like?
The lab held a research hackathon in Hongcheon focused on EEG and brain imaging, with cooking and games outside research sessions.
Members have conducted research at MILA and Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). At OB/Scene Focus in November 2025, the lab presented early experiments using EEG and AI to express emotion and memory through art.
Who leads the lab?
Jiook Cha is PI of the SNU Connectome Lab. He studies cognition, emotion and mental health through relationships among genes, brain, behavior and environment, bringing theoretical explanation and AI prediction together. The People page describes his approach; the SNU faculty profile provides his biography.
Jiook Cha’s approach to research → SNU faculty profile ↗Explore the research
How do you study development and mental health?
We study development and mental health through connections among genes, brain, behavior and environment. We analyze relationships among polygenic scores, brain imaging, behavior and living environments, and examine information from family history and predictions from combined measurements. Covariation and causal pathways are distinct.
Development and mental-health studies and sources ↗How do you study emotion and memory?
We use VR, experience reports and EEG to examine positive and negative feelings that coexist during awe. A separate recall study uses emotion estimated from EEG to guide music and video generation. Memory content comes from participant-provided materials.
Emotion and memory studies and sources ↗What is the Neuro-X project?
Neuro-X studies AI for understanding and predicting cognition, emotion and behavior from brain activity. It develops models suited to different signals and questions, including fMRI models (SwiFT, NeuroMamba) and EEG models (DIVER). Research directions include applying learned patterns to new people and tasks, and combining different brain recordings.
ALCF Neuro-X ↗What is NeuroMamba?
NeuroMamba is a state-space model for 4D fMRI. It reduces the computational cost of learning by removing non-brain background tokens. The public study evaluates sex classification; extension to cognition and mental health needs further testing (NeurIPS 2025 Brain & Body workshop Spotlight).
NeuroMamba ↗What is DIVER-0?
DIVER-0 is designed so that its output follows changes in EEG channel order. It was fine-tuned for emotion recognition and motor-imagery classification and tested under synthetic channel permutations. Extension to broader clinical montages and missing-electrode settings needs validation (ICML 2025 GenBio workshop Spotlight).
DIVER-0 ↗What quantum machine learning research does the lab do?
We explore ways to represent and learn from brain signals by combining quantum circuits with classical models. Simulation studies include fMRI time-series analysis and Q-DIVER, which connects quantum circuits to an EEG model. Quantum advantage on brain data has not been established.
Quantum machine learning studies and sources ↗