RESEARCH TEAM
Prof Thomas Carlson
Primary Investigator
A/Prof Thomas Carlson research interests are visual object recognition and multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) methods. He completed his Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Minnesota in 2004 under the supervision of Profs Sheng He and Paul Schrater. Following his PhD, he has had appointments at Harvard, University of Maryland, and Macquarie University. In 2016, A/Prof Carlson moved to Sydney University to start the Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory.
Email: thomas.carlson@sydney.edu.au
Twitter: @CompCogNeuro
Google Scholar: Link
University webpage: Link
Dr Denise Moerel
Postdoctoral Researcher
Denise Moerel is a postdoctoral researcher in the Sydney Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab. Her research combines MEG, EEG, and fMRI with multivariate pattern analysis methods to investigate the spatiotemporal dynamics of visual processing in the brain. She recently completed her PhD at Macquarie University. Her PhD work focused on understanding how cognitive processes, such as attention, expectation, short-term memory, and decision-making, affect the way visual information is processed by the brain, and used to guide behaviour.
Email: denise.moerel@sydney.edu.au
Twitter: @DeniseMoerel
Google Scholar: Link
Alex Sulfaro
PhD Candidate
Alex Sulfaro is currently a PhD candidate in the lab. Alex graduated from a Bachelor of Advanced Science at UNSW, majoring in chemistry and neuroscience. He was awarded First-Class Honours for his project in synthetic organic chemistry, making improved analogues of neuroactive drugs. His research currently focuses on the neural mechanisms that distinguish both visual and auditory mental imagery from sensory perception and hallucinations.
Email: alexander.sulfaro@sydney.edu.au
Twitter: @HereForPapers
Sophia Shatek
PhD Candidate
Sophia Shatek is a currently working on research as part of a PhD program. Sophia completed a Bachelor of Science (Advanced), majoring in psychology and neuroscience. She received first class honours for her project in the Sydney Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, investigating mental imagery with EEG. Her current research looks at concept development across the lifespan.
Email: sophia.shatek@sydney.edu.au
Twitter: @ShatekSophia
Ivy Zhou
MPhil Candidate
Ivy completed her Honours degree in the group investigating how concept representations vary across languages. She is now a Masters student studying cross-linguistic conceptual representation in English and Chinese Mandarin speakers.
ALUMNI
Dr Amanda Robinson
Alumnus
Dr Amanda Robinson was an ARC DECRA Fellow at the University of Sydney with expertise in perception and attention, specifically relating to object perception. She received her PhD from the Queensland Brain Institute at The University of Queensland for research on olfactory-visual integration. After a postdoc with Prof Marlene Behrmann at Carnegie Mellon University, Dr Robinson returned to Australia to join the Sydney Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab. Dr Robinson uses EEG, MEG and fMRI with computational methods to uncover the spatiotemporal dynamics of perceptual processing.
Twitter: @amandarob10
Google Scholar: Link
Roy Raskolnikov
Alumnus
Roy Raskolnikov is a previous PhD student in the Sydney Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab. He completed his Bachelor’s degree in Science at the University of Sydney, majoring in Psychology and Neuroscience. His Masters thesis focused on using virtual reality to assess human spatial navigation, under the supervision of Dr Ian Johnston. Roy’s research focuses on how people process social cues.
Dr Genevieve Quek
Alumnus
Dr Genevieve Quek is a postdoctoral research associate with interests in both face and object recognition. She received her PhD from Macquarie University in 2015 for her research concerning the limits and sensitivities of nonconscious face
perception. Since that time she has undertaken postdoctoral training with some of the foremost experts in high-level vision (Prof. Bruno Rossion at the University of Louvain in Belgium; A/Prof Marius Peelen at the Donders Institute in the
Netherlands). Dr Quek’s research centres on understanding how the human brain transforms complex, dynamic visual input into a meaningful understanding of the world. In pursuit of this, she studies neural and behavioural markers of perceptual categorisation in child and adult observers, combining high temporal resolution neuroimaging methods (electro/magneto-encephalography) with state-of-the-art computational analysis approaches.
Email: genevieve.quek@sydney.edu.au
Twitter: @DrQuekles
Google Scholar: Link
Christopher Whyte
Alumnus
Christopher Whyte conducted research in the group as part of his Master’s degree, investigating how multi-variate pattern analysis techniques can provide insight into perceptual processing, particularly in predictive coding and visual awareness. He completed his Bachelor’s degree in Science, with a major in cognitive and brain sciences, and a minor in philosophy.
Twitter: @chrisjackwhyte
Patrick Engeler
Alumnus
Patrick previously conducted a research project in the lab as part of his Masters thesis. His research focuses on invariant object recognition. Patrick graduated from a Bachelor of Science, majoring in biomedicine.
Dr Tijl Grootswagers
Alumnus
Dr Tijl Grootswagers is an early career researcher and an expert in multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA), or “brain decoding”, methods. Dr Grootswagers completed his Ph.D. at Macquarie University, developing his expertise in the application of MVPA to MEG data. He is the author of a tutorial article published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience that provides guidelines and standards for MEG decoding. He has made extensive use of MVPA methods, and mainly applied them to the domain of visual object recognition. He has also been among the pioneers introducing the application of MVPA to MEG in several other domains, such as emotion representation, number recognition, and colour processing. Tijl is now a Vice Chancellor's Research Fellow in Cognitive Neuroscience at the MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development at Western Sydney University.
Website: tijl.github.io
Twitter: @TGrootswagers
Google Scholar: Link
Lina Teichmann
Alumnus
Dr Lina Teichmann's PhD work focused on understanding how conceptual knowledge is integrated with sensory information to shape the way we perceive the world. She used MEG combined with multivariate pattern analyses (MVPA) to disentangle brain activity associated with visual and conceptual aspects of number and object processing. Her work gave insights into the complexities of visual perception and its dependency on prior knowledge
Twitter: @lina_teichmann