Maxine Levesque

About Maxine Levesque

I study neuroscience and mental health with a mathematical lens; that’s taken me from mapping real-time human brain activity during speech in the OR, to decoding the invisible flickers of calcium in astrocytes, the mysterious “dark matter” of the brain, to using language models to better understand what’s happening inside someone’s mind based on what they write online.My PhD work focused on unifying notions of relational understanding and computation across neurons, non-neuronal brain cells, aneural organisms, and artificial agents.As a clinician-scientist, I want to help build new tools in psychiatry that empower people to change the understanding within their own mind. Neuroscience and psychology—both new and old—show us so clearly that this internal understanding is the foundation shaping the unique lived world of each person. Changing the world within has an incredible transformative power.

Experience

1. Platform Architect

   Astera Institute

   Apr 2025 — Present

   I research new AI-driven data analysis methods for neuroscience, and design platforms that run those methods—and disseminate the knowledge derived from them—at scale.

Education

• The Johns Hopkins University

  Bachelor of Science - BS, Biomedical Engineering, Mathematics

  2011 — 2015

• University of California, San Francisco

  Doctor of Medicine - MD

  2018 — 2029

• University of California, San Francisco

  Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Neuroscience

  2020 — 2025