Sacha van Albada is leader of the group "Theoretical Neuroanatomy" at the Institute for Advanced Simulation (IAS-6) at the Jülich Research Center and Junior Professor for Computational Neuroanatomy at the University of Cologne, Germany. She obtained a Bachelor of Science degree from University College Utrecht, the Netherlands, followed by a master's in Theoretical Physics from Utrecht University, and a PhD in brain modeling at the School of Physics at the University of Sydney, Australia. Subsequently, she held postdoc positions at the University of Sydney and at INM-7, Research Center Jülich before becoming a group leader in 2017 and obtaining a Tenure Track Junior Professorship in 2019.

Her group combines anatomical and physiological data from a wide range of sources to build neural network models of mammalian cerebral cortex. The aim is to understand relationships between cortical structure and dynamics, and to provide models that serve as platforms for further refinement and for incorporating cortical function.