Teaching

My teaching is concentrated in the area of cognitive neuroscience. I lecture in undergraduate and graduate courses and supervise research projects at all levels.

About me

I grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and completed my higher education and postdoctoral training in the United States (Williams College BA, Yale PhD, Yale and Harvard Medical School postdoctoral fellowships). I moved to Oxford in 1994 to take up a research lectureship position in cognitive neuroscience and the first Oxford JRF position in Psychology, at New College. In 1996, I became a University Lecturer in the Department of Experimental Psychology (Reader 2002-2006, Professor 2006-2014). My post was associated with New College, where I was the first female Tutorial Fellow in a science discipline. In 2014, I became the first holder of the statutory Chair in Translational Cognitive Neuroscience at Oxford, and a Professorial Fellow of St Catherine’s College.

Research

I remain perplexed by that magic between brain and mind. In my research, I investigate how the brain prioritises and selects information from the sensory stream and from memories at various time scales to form psychological experience and guide behaviour. I combine behavioural experiments in humans with multiple types of safe methods for imaging and stimulating the human brain. For a more in-depth view of the research in my laboratory, please visit my lab web pages.

Graduate supervision

I am committed to supervision and mentoring. I run a large, productive, and happy research group, with about twenty members. I supervise graduate students interested in understanding the neural basis of healthy human cognition, as well as students wishing to specialise in the neural cognitive bases of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders.

Leadership and service

I believe in giving back and take an active role serving the academic and scientific community in Oxford and beyond. At Oxford, I am head of the Department of Experimental Psychology, director of the Oxford Centre for Human Brain Activity (OHBA) in Psychiatry, and chair of the Oxford Neuroscience committee. I am also a member of the University Council and serve on its research, innovation, and education committees. Outside Oxford, I serve as advisor to the James S. McDonnell Foundation Program (JSMF) in Understanding Human Cognition and on various advisory bodies to scientific institutions. In addition, I hold roles on multiple editorial, funding, programme and prize-awarding boards.

I am a fellow of the British Academy, a member of the Academia Europaea, and an international fellow of the National Academy of Sciences.