On Wednesday, the 19th of December 2018, Mehdi successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled "Establishing a Novel fMRI Approach to Investigate Visual Cognitive Properties in Pigeons". Mehdi’s PhD studies are an incredible tour de force through all complexities and difficulties that face a brave person who is establishing a completely novel technical approach to realize a breakthrough in cognitive neuroscience. The committee, consisting of Annemie van der Linden (Univ. Antwerp), Martina Manns, Nikolai Axmacher and Onur Güntürkün, were all deeply impressed by these achievements but nevertheless grilled Mehdi heavily by dozens of intricate questions. Mehdi stood the ground until everybody was convinced that he fully deserves to be awarded a PhD. Accompanied by a long applause of all Biopsycho’s, he then put on his mortar board that incorporated a small MRI system to scan in the future even smaller animals. Congratulations Mehdi! We all are very proud of you!