Role
Lecturer
Qualifications & background
MSc Psychology
PhD Experimental Psychology / Cognitive Neuroscience
I studied Psychology at the Ludwigs-Maximillians-University at Munich, Germany. During my my PhD at the Max-Planck-Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience in Munich and Leipzig I tried to uncover commonalities between the understanding of language and actions of other people, in a project with Wolfgang Prinz, Guenther Knoblich, Thomas Gunter and Angela D. Friederici, using electrophysiology (ERPs) and behavioural measures. After that I worked in a 5-year post-doc position in Steve Tipper's lab at Bangor University, Wales, UK to investigate embodied social cognition and how it is affected by attention, using both behavioural methodologies and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
Teaching interests
I teach a first-year course on Biological Psychology and a first year course on Contemporary Topics in Cognitive and Biological Psychology (focussing on recent developments in Embodied Cognition). For third-year students, I teach an option on recent developments in Social Cognitive Neuroscience that deals with the brain mechanisms that govern social interactions (covering Mirror Neurons, Neuroeconomics, Theory of Mind, and 'social' areas in the visual brain). In addition, I teach a practical on Evolutionary Psychology, and on Critical Thinking in Science.
Interesting links:
Mind Hacks (brain and psychology news and discussion) Research interests
Social Motor Cognition
Gesture Observation and Production
Interactions between 'mirror' and object-based processes during action observation
University of Plymouth Neuoscience Group
UoP Research group membership
Centre for Research in Brain, Cognition and Behaviour (CBCB)
