Mariya Toneva

Mariya Toneva is a Tenure-track Professor (W2) at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Saarbrücken, Germany, where she leads the Bridging AI and Neuroscience (BrAIN) group. Her research integrates machine learning, natural language processing, and neuroscience to develop computational models of language processing in the brain and improve NLP systems through brain alignment.

Her research vision focuses on bidirectional benefits: 1) Using brain data to develop better language models that align with human cognition, and 2) Using insights from language models to understand human language processing. Current projects investigate how episodic memory can enhance long-term LLM agents and how speech models can better reflect neural processing hierarchies.

Toneva's recent publications demonstrate significant contributions in brain-LLM alignment, with work appearing at ICLR, CogSci, TMLR, EMNLP, and INTERSPEECH. Her research group systematically examines why language models align with brain recordings and develops methods to improve this alignment through brain-tuning techniques.

She actively seeks PhD students and postdoctoral researchers for projects involving neuropixel data analysis of speech processing and multimodal transformer architectures. Toneva regularly presents keynotes at major conferences (e.g., ELLISxUniReps Speaker Series) and participates in workshops on NeuroAI and cognitive modeling.

Her interdisciplinary approach combines techniques from machine learning, natural language processing, and cognitive neuroscience to address fundamental questions about language representation in both artificial and biological neural systems.