Sergio graduated with first-class honours in Biomedical Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain. He went on to complete an MSc in Biomedical Engineering: Medical Physics and Imaging at the Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, graduating with distinction in 2020. He then pursued a PhD in Biomedical Research within the same department at Imperial College London, where he focused on the application of AI models to predict neurochemical responses to antidepressant treatment. Following his PhD, Sergio began a postdoctoral research position at the Artificial Intelligence in Mental Health (AIM) Lab at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London.

At the AIM Lab, Sergio focuses on developing machine learning models that integrate multimodal data—including clinical, environmental, and neuroimaging data—to better understand and predict depressive comorbidities in psychosis. This work enables more accurate prognostication and supports the development of targeted, data-driven interventions aimed at improving patient outcomes in complex, transdiagnostic mental health conditions.

In addition, Sergio contributes to the development of the Department of Psychosis Shared Database Initiative, an internal repository designed to provide a deep phenotyping resource of clinical datasets for advancing research into mental health disorders. He is also involved in the creation of the AIM Review Tool (aimreview.sites.er.kcl.ac.uk), a cutting-edge web application that leverages advanced machine learning methods to streamline the title and abstract screening and full-text data extraction processes in systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

Research Interests

• Machine learning for precision psychiatry
• Psychosis and depression
• Neuroimaging

Key Publications

Mena, S., Dietsch, S., Berger, S. N., Witt, C. E., & Hashemi, P. (2021). Novel, User-Friendly Experimental and Analysis Strategies for Fast Voltammetry: 1. The Analysis Kid for FSCV. ACS Measurement Science Au, 1(1), 11–19. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsmeasuresciau.1c00003

Hersey, M., Reneaux, M., Berger, S. N., Mena, S., Buchanan, A. M., Ou, Y., Tavakoli, N., Reagan, L. P., Clopath, C., & Hashemi, P. (2022). A tale of two transmitters: serotonin and histamine as in vivo biomarkers of chronic stress in mice. Journal of Neuroinflammation, 19(1), 167. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12974-022-02508-9

Hersey, M., Samaranayake, S., Berger, S. N., Tavakoli, N., Mena, S., Nijhout, H. F., Reed, M. C., Best, J., Blakely, R. D., Reagan, L. P., & Hashemi, P. (2021). Inflammation-Induced Histamine Impairs the Capacity of Escitalopram to Increase Hippocampal Extracellular Serotonin. The Journal of Neuroscience, 41(30), 6564–6577. https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.2618-20.2021

Witt, C. E., Mena, S., Honan, L. E., Batey, L., Salem, V., Ou, Y., & Hashemi, P. (2022). Low-Frequency Oscillations of In Vivo Ambient Extracellular Brain Serotonin. Cells, 11(10), 1719.