People

Faculty

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore is a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL. She is Leader of the Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Group at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. Her group's research focuses on the development of social cognition and executive function in the typically developing adolescent brain.

Sarah-Jayne studied Experimental Psychology at Oxford University (1993-1996) and then did her PhD (1996-2000) at the Functional Imaging Lab (FIL) with Chris Frith and Daniel Wolpert, investigating the self-monitoring of action in healthy individuals and people with schizophrenia. She then took up a Wellcome Trust International Research Fellowship (2001-2003) to work in Lyon, France, with Jean Decety on the perception of causality in the human brain. This was followed by a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship (2004-2007) and a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (2007-2016) at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. Sarah-Jayne was awarded the British Psychological Society Doctoral Award 2001, the BPS Spearman Medal for outstanding early career research 2006, and the Lecturer Award 2011 by the Swedish Neuropsychology Society.

Sarah-Jayne is actively involved in Public Engagement with Science: she frequently gives public lectures and talks at schools, has worked with the Select Committee for Education, and acted as scientific consultant on the BBC series The Human Mind in 2003. Sarah-Jayne has an interest in the links between neuroscience and education. She co-authored a book with Professor Uta Frith called The Learning Brain: Lessons for Education. She sits on the Royal Society BrainWaves working group for neuroscience, education and lifelong learning and the the Royal Society Vision for Science and Mathematics Education 5-19 Committee.

Sarah-Jayne is Deputy Director of the Wellcome Trust Four Year PhD Programme in Neuroscience at UCL. She is Consulting Editor for Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, and co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience.

Click here for Curriculum Vitae.

email: s.blakemore @ ucl.ac.uk

Post-Doctoral Research Fellows

Iroise Dumontheil



Dr Iroise Dumontheil's research focuses on the development of social cognition and executive functions during adolescence. She is particularly interested in the role played by the rostral prefrontal cortex, or Brodmann area 10, during the development of cognitive functions. Her research combines behavioural, genetic and both structural and functional neuroimaging methods. She is currently working on a project on investigating genetic influences on the development of social cognition and executive functions during adolescence with Emma Kilford and Sarah-Jayne Blakemore.

email: i.dumontheil@ucl.ac.uk

Personal homepage: http://sites.google.com/site/idumontheil/

PhD students


Hauke Hillebrandt

Hauke Hillebrandt majored in 'Integrated Social and Cognitive Psychology' at Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany and also studied abroad at UCL. He is doing a PhD with Sarah-Jayne Blakemore investigating perspective taking during adolescence.

Personal webpage: https://sites.google.com/site/haukehillebrandt/

e-mail: hauke.hillebrandt@gmail.com








Laura Wolf

Laura Wolf studied Biochemistry at the Technical University of Munich (Germany). She is a Wellcome Trust 4 year PhD student in Neuroscience at UCL. During her first year in the Programme she did a project on risk taking in adolescence under the supervision of Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and on the effect of reward on the precision of visual working memory under the the supervision of Professor Masud Husain. Her PhD project will be focusing on the development of peer influence on behaviour and associated brain development during adolescence. 


Kate Mills

Kate Mills studied psychology at Portland State University, during which time she investigated brain connectivity changes across development under the supervision of Dr. Damien Fair at Oregon Health & Science University. Kate is currently on the UCL-NIMH four year Doctoral Training Programme in Neuroscience under the supervision of Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and Jay Giedd. She is investigating structural and functional changes in the social brain during adolescence.
          

Anne-Lise Goddings

Dr Anne-Lise Goddings is a paediatrician who completed her undergraduate training at Cambridge University and UCL.  Since then, she has worked at a number of London hospitals and is a member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.  She is undertaking a PhD as part of an MRC Clinical Research Training Fellowship investigating the effects of puberty on adolescent cognitive brain development.







Research Assistants


Emma Jayne Kilford

Emma studied Experimental Psychology at Oxford University, during which time she spent a year investigating the effects of cognitive interventions on the development of intrusive memories under the supervision of Dr. Emily Holmes. She is currently working as a research assistant on a project investigating genetic influences on the development of social cognition and executive functions during adolescence, led by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and Iroise Dumontheil.







Narges Bazargani

Narges recently graduated with a degree in neuroscience from UCL where she investigated the effect of perceptual bias on emotion perception in adults and adolescents, using fMRI, under the supervisions of Prof Blakemore and Dr Barbalat. She has also worked on an EEG experiment examining emotion regulation in antisocial children at the university of Toronto. Currently, she is examining the effective connectivity using Dynamic Causal Model in an executive function task at the Blakemore's Lab under Dr Dumontheil's supervision.






MSc Students

Alexander Moscicki

Alex is coming to the lab as a MSc student in Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL. He previously worked under the supervision of Dr. Ellen Lebeinluft at the National Institute of Mental Health, investigating developmental differences between pediatric and adult bipolar patients. During his year here, he will examine effective connectivity changes in adolescence under Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and Iroise Dumontheil.







Sarah Jensen

Sarah is an MRes student in Neuroscience at UCL. She holds a BA and has done graduate studies in Psychology at University of Copenhagen. She has specialised in Clinical Psychology and Developmental Neuropsychology. Furthermore, Sarah has taught undergraduate seminars in Clinical Psychology and Cognitive Psychology at University of Copenhagen.

She is currently undertaking a 12 month rotation at the Blakemore Lab, and will be working on ongoing projects, such as an investigation of genetic influences on the development of social cognition and executive functions during adolescence, led by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and Iroise Dumontheil.

e-mail: sarah.jensen.11@ucl.ac.uk




The Blakemore Lab at the Royal Institution of Great Britain




Recent alumni

   Dr Kathrin Cohen Kadosh, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, currently post-doc at Dr Jennifer Lau's lab in Oxford, UK
   
    Dr. Guillaume Barbalat, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, currently post-doc at Professor Paul Fletcher's lab in Cambridge, UK
    
    Dr Jennifer Cook, Wellcome Trust PhD student 2008-2011, currently post-doc at Professor Barbara Sahakian's lab in Cambridge, UK

    Dr Leonora Weil, Paediatric Clinician researcher, 2010-2011, currently working in London hospitals, UK

    Eduard Klapwijk, Intern student from Leiden University, 2010 

    James Song, MSc Neuroscience student 2009
   
    Marion Rouault, Intern student 2010,  currently undergraduate at Ecole Normale Superieure, Lyon, France
    
    Dr Stephanie Burnett, Wellcome Trust PhD student 2005-2009, currently British Academy Fellow, Oxford, UK. BNA Doctoral Award for her PhD.

    Dr Catherine Sebastian, BBSRC PhD student 2006-2009, currently a post-doc in Dr Essi Viding's lab in UCL Department of Psychology. BPS Doctoral Award for her PhD.

    Rachael Houlton, Wellcome Trust PhD project rotation 2009, currently PhD student in UCL NPP, London, UK

    Rachel Swain, Wellcome Trust summer student 2008, currently Natural Sciences graduate, Cambridge, UK

    Ana Seara Cardoso, Intern student 2008, currently PhD student in Dr Essi Viding's lab in UCL Department of Psychology, UK

    Ben de Haas, Intern student 2009, currently Wellcome Trust PhD student at UCL, UK

    Bano Hassan, MSc student 2008, currently Research Assistant ICH, UCL, UK

    Dr Zillah Boraston,  Wellcome Trust PhD student 2004-2008, currently Scientific Office at DEFRA, UK
    
    Dr Stephanie Thompson, BBSRC PhD student 2004-2007, currently working as an Assistant Psychologist

    Isobel Pastor-Bristow, Wellcome Trust summer student 2004, currently Civil Service Fast Track

    Susana Calo, Intern student 2004, currently PhD student at ICH, UCL
   
    Teresa Tavassoli, Intern student 2004, currently PhD student at Autism Research Centre, Cambridge

    Dr Niall Boyce, Medical Elective student 2004, currently Psychiatrist

    Dr Hanneke den Ouden, Erasmus Intern student 2004, currently post-doc at Radboud University Nijmegen

    Dr Suparna Choudhury, MRC PhD student 2003-2006, currently Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin
   
    Emily Jacobs, Intern student 2003, currently PhD student at UC Berkeley, USA
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