Dr. Akram Bakkour

Biography

Akram Bakkour is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago since July 2020. He earned his undergraduate degree in Neuroscience from Brown University and has conducted years of translational research at Massachusetts General Hospital, focusing on developing imaging biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases. He completed his PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied value-based decision making and behavioral change. Following his doctoral studies, he undertook postdoctoral training at Columbia University before moving to Chicago. Bakkour’s research centers on the cognitive neural mechanisms of relational memory and its contribution to decision making. His work seeks to illuminate the often-invisible processes by which memories inform our decisions and the underlying brain mechanisms that support these processes. Bakkour employs a combination of functional brain imaging, eye-tracking, computational modeling, and neuropsychological studies with patients exhibiting known cognitive deficits to explore the interactions between memory and decision making.

Research Interests

Experience