Scholar
Ida Momennejad
Google Scholar ID: OFdUAJwAAAAJ
Microsoft Research
Citations & Impact
Citations
2,441
H-index
21
i10-index
26
Publications
20
Co-authors
38
list available
Publications
Resume (English only)
Academic Achievements
- Published multiple papers, including 'Memory and Planning in Brains and Machines: Multiscale Predictive Representations' (forthcoming book in Oxford University Press), 'Position: We Need An Algorithmic Understanding of Generative AI' (ICML 2025), 'Evaluating Compositional Scene Understanding in Multimodal Generative Models' (TMLR 2025), 'A brain-inspired agentic architecture to improve planning with LLMs' (Nature Communications 16, 8633), 'Collective Innovation in Groups of Large Language Models' (ALife 2024), 'Evaluating cognitive maps and planning in Large Language Models with CogEval' (NeurIPS 2023), 'Algorithmic Primitives and Compositional Geometry of Reasoning in Language Models' (arxiv), 'A prefrontal cortex-inspired architecture for planning in Large Language Models' (arXiv), 'Decoding In-Context Learning: Neuroscience-inspired Analysis of Representations in Large Language Models' (arXiv), 'ALLURE: Auditing and improving LLM-based evaluation of text using iterative in-context-learning' (arXiv).
Research Experience
- Serves as a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, focusing on generative AI, inspired by cognitive neuroscience, reinforcement learning, and NeuroAI. Develops and tests brain and behavior-inspired algorithms for learning and reasoning, such as AI for gaming with Xbox. Combines reinforcement learning, neural networks, large language models, and machine learning with behavioral experiments, fMRI, and electrophysiology.
Education
- PhD in Psychology (Berlin, Germany, Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience); Postdoc at Princeton University (collaborated with Ken Norman, Matt Botvinick, Jon Cohen, Nathaniel Daw); MSc in Philosophy of Science (Utrecht, Netherlands); BSc in Software Engineering (Tehran, Iran). Previously worked at Columbia University, Electrophysiology, Memory, and Navigation Lab.
Background
- Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research NYC. Focuses on building and evaluating generative AI, inspired by research in cognitive neuroscience, reinforcement learning, and NeuroAI. Studies how humans and AI build models of the world and use them in memory, exploration, and planning.
Miscellany
- Co-hosts The Learning Salon every Friday at 4 PM ET with John Krakauer and Melanie Mitchell. Serves as a mentor at the New Museum's New Inc, the incubator for creative science. Featured in various podcasts discussing her work, including the Microsoft Research AI frontiers podcast, BrainInspired, and Parsing Science.
