Tara van Viegen, PhD


Currently I am:

  • a postdoc at the Neuroscience of Attention & Perception Laboratory at Princeton University

  • an Outreach Facilitator with EPSP (Diversity and Equity committee at Princeton Neuroscience Institute)

  • and an executive board-member for Neuromatch Academy, where I am the Volunteer Coordinator and where I lead the Video Production team

Broadly speaking I study rhythmicity in brain and behavior. My main research project focuses on the relationship between burst firing and attention in different brain areas, but with a central role for higher-order thalamus. Neurons in the thalamus are known to be able to switch between tonic and burst firing, but what role this switching behavior plays in awake behaving animals is not well-known. Another research project focuses on rhythmicity in working memory, where I examine whether percepts that are kept in working memory are more/less stable as a function of time.

My thesis, which I obtained at the University of Birmingham, focused on time estimation and post-error adjustments (email me if you would like a copy). After my PhD I had the opportunity to join Benjamin Morillon and Kristof Strijkers as we were rewarded an internal IBL grant, but I opted to go to Princeton University instead.

The thesis project from my research master is published here and you can read an interview about my experience as a master student here.

Email: taravanviegen [AT] gmail [DOT] com

Twitter: @TaraViegen

Neuromatch Academy

Here you can see what I did for Neuromatch Academy.

Beyond research

I am a very proud mom. My son is called Judo and he is named after my late grandmother, Judith. I was a single parent for ~8 years, until I met Steffen Buergers to whom I am very happily married now.

In my free time I like to make art, bake/cook vegan food, and listen to audiobooks. I am also sporty and love rock climbing and bouldering. I hate running, but I do it anyways.