Our Team
Dr Alexander Hui Xiang Yang
Neuroscientist
linkedin.com/in/alexander-yang-hx
Alexander Yang is founding director of ManaBridge, an AI research company integrating neuroscience and machine intelligence.
He holds a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Otago.
Alex’s background spans experience in clinical trials and the development of AI tools to guide non-invasive neuromodulation of psychophysiological symptoms.
Dr Iman Abouhassan
Senior Research Scientist
https://www.linkedin.com/in/imanabouhassan
Dr Iman Abouhassan is a Senior AI Research Scientist and specialist in economic data analytics, with long professional experience in economic statistics, external sector analysis, and advanced data analytics.
She is a Short-Term Expert with the International Monetary Fund and worked at the Central Bank of Lebanon until 2025. Her current focus is on academic and applied research, building reliable, explainable, and ethically responsible AI-driven analytical models for finance and economics.
She holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence Systems from the Technical University of Sofia (EUT+ Alliance) and is the author of the brain-inspired AI architectures MOST, ePAMeT, and NeuDen, integrating evolving Spiking Neural Networks, Neuro-Fuzzy Inference Systems, and explainable AI for adaptive and interpretable modelling. She is a co-founder of the Neuroinformatics, Neural Networks, and Neurocomputers Group (N3BG).
Damon (Zhaoxin) Wang
Software Consultant & PhD Candidate
https://nz.linkedin.com/in/zhaoxin-wang-148365128
Damon is a PhD candidate at the Knowledge Engineering and Discovery Research Institute (KEDRI), Auckland University of Technology and is involved as a Software Consultant for KECL project.
His research focuses on the application of Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) to earthquake prediction, with particular interest in modelling temporal seismic patterns, event-driven learning, and biologically inspired neural computation.
Damon’s work explores how neuromorphic approaches can enhance the efficiency, interpretability, and real-time performance of seismic forecasting models.
Assia Kassabova
Business Advisor
https://www.linkedin.com/in/assiakassabova
Assia has over 20 years experience in the technology space, specialising in Data Science, Data Analytics and visualisation.
Most of her career has been spent working for tech startups across NZ, UK and Switzerland, leading analytical teams and consulting clients on custom applications and SaaS solutions.
Her extensive technical and business experience brings her to Knowledge Engineering Consulting in the capacity of business advisor for projects and company strategy.
Assia lives in Zürich, Switzerland and has a BSc with 1st Honours in Information Science and Postgraduate Diploma in Art History and Design from Otago University, NZ.
She has a deep interest and passion in the ethical evolution of technology, its intersection with society, and us as humans.